Jill, Derick, Israel and the latest Dillard- Part 23

[Audrey2]

16 minutes ago, front hugs > duggs said:

The deeply hidden inside me conspiracy theorist is coming out: What if JB didn't mind spending the money to go to the hospital on Michelle, but won't pay for his kids to go to the hospital for childbirth? That would be seriously f*d up, but maybe possible. We haven't really been able to figure out why Jill and Jessa are so adamant on homebirth when their mother mostly delivered in hospitals.

Also, if Derick insisted Jill go to the hospital, wouldn't she have to listen? Of course, relying on Derick to be a decent, logical human at this point would be like relying on JB&M to actually parent their own children...

I wonder if this second generation of Fundies is seeing childbirth as a holiness competition, much as many are seeing marriage. 

 

In the marriage competition, some of the couples seem to be in a competition to see who the most pure is. I'm guessing that some of the younger Duggars (Joy, probably, and we don't know if others may feel this way or not) are feeling pretty smug that Jinger (gasp) front hugged Jeremy before they were married. As Joy has stated, they will only side hug and won't hold hands until they are engaged. I know there has been speculation on how far some Fundy girls will take this- not seeing their fiancé until engaged, not side hugging until they are engaged, with no hand holding until the altar, etc. 

 

Seeing childbirth as a holiness competition would keep upping the ante- from a doctor's care and midwife's care up until a birth at a birthing center to prenatal care but a home birth, to no prenatal care but a home birth, attended by a midwife. I can see the next (illogical) step saying, "Women have been delivering babies for years, why get a midwife? The mom and other women who've given birth know how to do it." The end result will be tragedy at some point, either for a mother or a baby or both. 

[grandmadugger]

15 hours ago, HarleyQuinn said:

Yes I know, that's why I said she'll be Jessa's "midwife" THIS time around. 

I'm sorry I thought you said last time 

 

I can't wrap my head around these people. I get that they may believe that when it is your time there is nothing you can do to keep from dying. My grandma was that way but even at 98 with congestive heart failure she refused to sign a DNR.  Her reasoning was she wasn't going to meet God and have to tell him she didn't use all the tools at her disposal to stay alive. If everything is God given why don't they believe that modern medicine is God given as well?

[front hugs > duggs]

1 hour ago, Audrey2 said:

Seeing childbirth as a holiness competition would keep upping the ante- from a doctor's care and midwife's care up until a birth at a birthing center to prenatal care but a home birth, to no prenatal care but a home birth, attended by a midwife. I can see the next (illogical) step saying, "Women have been delivering babies for years, why get a midwife? The mom and other women who've given birth know how to do it." The end result will be tragedy at some point, either for a mother or a baby or both. 

Oh my. I hope this isn't where this path leads. While I don't really want to google this to get exact stats, I feel pretty confident saying infant mortality rates at childbirth have decreased with modern medicine/technology. We've come so far in tech and medicine, in the last several decades, let alone to when people actually wore prairie frumpers (fundies aside). I have no idea why anybody would reject such progress.

Oh yeah. Jeebus.

[PennySycamore]

@Audrey2, there are already some fundies (and others) that believe that no one besides the woman and her husband should be present.  I first heard about this 31 years ago when the book Silent Knife mentioned New Nativity Maternity, based in Kansas, which was probably the first advocate of "free birth" or unattended home birth.    I won't go back and search for it, but I'm pretty sure I've read here on FJ that there have been tragedies with unassisted birth.

Btw, Lois Estner, one of the co-authors of Silent Knife, said several years later that some of what they wrote was just bullshit. For instance, she mentioned that the book said "Women either birth or croak, and they prefer birthing"  totally ignores the multitude of women who've died in childbirth through the millennia.  There were other things she thought they took too far.

@front hugs > duggs, do you mean that infant mortality/morbidity has decreased  over the last few year?

[front hugs > duggs]

@PennySycamore whoops! yes! this is what I get for online shopping and blogging at the same time

[SweetFellowshipper]

2 hours ago, front hugs > duggs said:

Oh my. I hope this isn't where this path leads. While I don't really want to google this to get exact stats, I feel pretty confident saying infant mortality rates at childbirth have decreased with modern medicine/technology. We've come so far in tech and medicine, in the last several decades, let alone to when people actually wore prairie frumpers (fundies aside). I have no idea why anybody would reject such progress.

Oh yeah. Jeebus.

Actually, maternal and infant mortality rates and complications are higher in doctor-attended hospital births than in those attended by registered midwives either in hospitals or at home. Can link to studies if anyone is interested. 

The key there is *registered*, though. Aka not the ones the Duggars use. But the idea that doctor attended hospital births are automatically the safest is untrue. 

[grandmadugger]

2 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

@Audrey2, there are already some fundies (and others) that believe that no one besides the woman and her husband should be present.  I first heard about this 31 years ago when the book Silent Knife mentioned New Nativity Maternity, based in Kansas, which was probably the first advocate of "free birth" or unattended home birth.    I won't go back and search for it, but I'm pretty sure I've read here on FJ that there have been tragedies with unassisted birth.

Btw, Lois Estner, one of the co-authors of Silent Knife, said several years later that some of what they wrote was just bullshit. For instance, she mentioned that the book said "Women either birth or croak, and they prefer birthing"  totally ignores the multitude of women who've died in childbirth through the millennia.  There were other things she thought they took too far.

@front hugs > duggs, do you mean that infant mortality/morbidity has decreased  over the last few year?

We still have those laws in Kansas. You can just about give birth anywhere you want with whoever you want. 

[karen77]

15 minutes ago, SweetFellowshipper said:

Actually, maternal and infant mortality rates and complications are higher in doctor-attended hospital births than in those attended by registered midwives either in hospitals or at home. Can link to studies if anyone is interested. 

The key there is *registered*, though. Aka not the ones the Duggars use. But the idea that doctor attended hospital births are automatically the safest is untrue. 

ALthough, you have to take into account that the midwives usually kick the high risk births to doctors and hospitals, so they are going to get the cases that are likely to have the worst outcomes as well. 

[SweetFellowshipper]

Just now, karen77 said:

ALthough, you have to take into account that the midwives usually kick the high risk births to doctors and hospitals, so they are going to get the cases that are likely to have the worst outcomes as well. 

That is true. I considered that, but at least one of the studies I read controlled for pre-existing conditions and only considered infant/mom pairings where there were no complications to begin with. 

[karen77]

1 minute ago, SweetFellowshipper said:

That is true. I considered that, but at least one of the studies I read controlled for pre-existing conditions and only considered infant/mom pairings where there were no complications to begin with. 

That is probably a more accurate study then, how did it consider transfersl?

[ClaraOswin]

3 minutes ago, karen77 said:

ALthough, you have to take into account that the midwives usually kick the high risk births to doctors and hospitals, so they are going to get the cases that are likely to have the worst outcomes as well. 

My thoughts were along those lines as well. I mean, obviously the doctor-attended ones would have more deaths and whatnot because not only are they going to have the high risk patients...but when something bad happens...I would imagine a doctor is called in.

[sparklymagie]

4 hours ago, SuchABlessing said:

I know they're pro-birth and pro-life so they don't feel the need to check if (god forbid) something is wrong with the baby with prenatal care. But if your child had a disability, a congenital defect or worse, wouldn't you want to know so you could research it and get a plan together for the birth? Give yourself knowledge to give the baby the best start they can have? 

I have very religious cousins who eschewed any kind of genetic/chromosomal testing when the wife was pregnant because "they would never terminate the pregnancy so it didn't matter." The baby was born with a very rare chromosomal abnormality which would have been caught if they had done the testing.  So right after the birth they were slammed with the information that their baby likely wouldn't make it but the doctors weren't sure because the condition was so rare. The medical providers had to start to do frantic research to find similar cases and see if anything could be done to help the baby.  The baby survived for a few days and my cousins were kept on tenterhooks while doctors tried to figure out what could be done. 

They got all the testing with the next baby.  

The testing wouldn't have caused them to terminate if they had known in advance but it sure would have given them, and their doctors, time to adjust and plan. 

[SweetFellowshipper]

12 minutes ago, karen77 said:

That is probably a more accurate study then, how did it consider transfersl?

I'll have to look and get back to you. 

11 minutes ago, ClaraOswin said:

My thoughts were along those lines as well. I mean, obviously the doctor-attended ones would have more deaths and whatnot because not only are they going to have the high risk patients...but when something bad happens...I would imagine a doctor is called in.

Right, but that doesn't make the doctor more qualified-- that's exactly the reason many people choose midwives. Doctors often treat every birth as pathological or an emergency (hence the extreme tendency in some areas towards unnecessary C sections), when really they are not as highly trained in the *normal* process of birth and sometimes want to schedule the birth on their own time. Just like you'd much prefer to go to a therapist for ongoing mental health maintenance but would go to the hospital in the case of an immediate suicide threat. They are trained in different areas and are going to have different ways of relating to patients and approaching mental health-- for example, you're going to have more choice in your treatment with a therapist and work WITH them. In the suicide ward, you're going to be told what to do. Both resources need to exist, for different reasons. In the same way, I consider a hospital birth with a doctor a highly unfavorable last resort (for me). 

That said, again, the Duggar midwives are not midwives...They're just ladies who like babies, basically. 

[MsSaylor]

I dont think JB and M necessarily encourage their kids to have home births. I clearly remember the episode where Anna gave birth to Mackenzie. Josh and Anna stated that their doctor was out of town and Anna didnt feel comfortable with another doctor and Anna wanted to stay at home. They related this to JB onthe phone and JB seemed...irritated and concerned. He said something along the lines of "well thats something you guys will have to pray about". 

Out of all Michelles births she only had 2 at home. I think its that many in their circles at least dabble in but JB and M seem to err much more on the side of hospital births. So i believe thats what they would prefer for their children. I agree that its a holiness competition for these girls. Hopefully both jessa and Jill will consider hospital birthd this time. For whatever reason my personal feeling is that Jill may go for a birth with more medical oversight this time but Jessa will have another homebirth with little to no oversight by a medical professional. 

[Carm_88]

I can't imagine not having a professional who is trained in birth being there as I was giving birth. There's no part of my mind that goes "That's a great idea." I know that they live in a bubble but death in childbirth still happens and it's still risky. I think it would be more risky if you already had past complications like Jill or Jessa. I guess I'm using logic which the Duggars never would.

[SweetFellowshipper]

1 minute ago, Carm_88 said:

I can't imagine not having a professional who is trained in birth being there as I was giving birth. There's no part of my mind that goes "That's a great idea." I know that they live in a bubble but death in childbirth still happens and it's still risky. I think it would be more risky if you already had past complications like Jill or Jessa. I guess I'm using logic which the Duggars never would.

I'm out of the loop a bit here. We're their most recent midwives not certified/irresponsible (a la Mommy's Butterfly), or did they not use them at all? 

[HeadshipRegent]

16 minutes ago, Carm_88 said:

I can't imagine not having a professional who is trained in birth being there as I was giving birth. There's no part of my mind that goes "That's a great idea." I know that they live in a bubble but death in childbirth still happens and it's still risky. I think it would be more risky if you already had past complications like Jill or Jessa. I guess I'm using logic which the Duggars never would.

Same. It blows my freaking mind that they act all high and mighty and ~pro life but don't give a shit about safety for mother and baby. It's a holier than thou competition at this point, tbh. I can see one of them pulling a Sparkling Lauren and attempting a unassisted homebirth. 

[Carm_88]

I'm out of the loop a bit here. We're their most recent midwives not certified/irresponsible (a la Mommy's Butterfly), or did they not use them at all? 

I don't believe so. I think Jill had a student midwife there with her for Izzy and the only thing known about Jessa's was that she was staying off camera.

[ClaraOswin]

55 minutes ago, SweetFellowshipper said:

I'll have to look and get back to you. 

Right, but that doesn't make the doctor more qualified-- that's exactly the reason many people choose midwives. Doctors often treat every birth as pathological or an emergency (hence the extreme tendency in some areas towards unnecessary C sections), when really they are not as highly trained in the *normal* process of birth and sometimes want to schedule the birth on their own time. Just like you'd much prefer to go to a therapist for ongoing mental health maintenance but would go to the hospital in the case of an immediate suicide threat. They are trained in different areas and are going to have different ways of relating to patients and approaching mental health-- for example, you're going to have more choice in your treatment with a therapist and work WITH them. In the suicide ward, you're going to be told what to do. Both resources need to exist, for different reasons. In the same way, I consider a hospital birth with a doctor a highly unfavorable last resort (for me). 

That said, again, the Duggar midwives are not midwives...They're just ladies who like babies, basically. 

Thankfully, not all hospitals and doctors are like the ones you describe. There are many that are fantastic. Where you are allowed more freedom in your birth experience. And really, one should know what their doctor is like well before giving birth. So if someone has a crappy OB-GYN who is more about "scheduling"...then they have 9 months to figure that out and find a new doctor. In many cases, people know their OB-GYN for years before even getting pregnant. So it's important to find a doctor you like and trust. I have one who is freaking great.

I see giving birth in a hospital setting basically like having a safety net.

[ClaraOswin]

Looks like little Jilly Muffin can't take care of her house on her own (and obviously her husband can't help because that's women's work.) Jill posted on FB that her mom and sisters came to help with laundry and cleaning. 

In any other family, I'd think "oh, that was nice of them." But with these people...it just bugs me.

[Carm_88]

Looks like little Jilly Muffin can't take care of her house on her own (and obviously her husband can't help because that's women's work.) Jill posted on FB that her mom and sisters came to help with laundry and cleaning. 
In any other family, I'd think "oh, that was nice of them." But with these people...it just bugs me.

It would normally be a nice thing but I think this is probably an everyday occurrence for Jill.

[2manyKidzzz]

As for Jill, maybe she is nauseous from the pregnancy. And really, what do any of the girls have to do since they can't visit "friends" or go out alone or anything. And Michelle, well, what the hell she does with her time no one knows. 

[SamiKatz]

5 minutes ago, 2manyKidzzz said:

As for Jill, maybe she is nauseous from the pregnancy. And really, what do any of the girls have to do since they can't visit "friends" or go out alone or anything. And Michelle, well, what the hell she does with her time no one knows. 

 

This is what I was going to say as well.  I believe she had a lot of nausea with Israel.

Not that I'm feeling sorry for myself or anything (I am absolutely feeling sorry for myself), but I have a bad cold and would like to call my Mom and sisters over to do my cooking and cleaning for me.  Pretty sure that is not going to happen though.

[GotCaughtDancing]

I hadn't kept up with the duggars much since a bit after josh's hell broke loose.  I did watch the 2nd season of counting on recently and wow. When did Derek become such a JB jr douchbag?  I actually felt sorry for Jill being in SA because her fear was real.  Not too bad since well ...

Derek now comes off as such an ass. Just something about him now compared to when they were first married and he worked at Walmart. I really thought Bin would be the one to become more like JB given his & Jessa's social media rants.

[apandaaries]

38 minutes ago, ClaraOswin said:

Thankfully, not all hospitals and doctors are like the ones you describe. There are many that are fantastic. Where you are allowed more freedom in your birth experience. And really, one should know what their doctor is like well before giving birth. So if someone has a crappy OB-GYN who is more about "scheduling"...then they have 9 months to figure that out and find a new doctor. In many cases, people know their OB-GYN for years before even getting pregnant. So it's important to find a doctor you like and trust. I have one who is freaking great.

One would think, but there are always variables, including insurance and available doctors in the area.  I gave birth at the more relaxed hospital (two choices in my area) and was supposed to have a midwife.  I found a group of midwives who all worked with an OB/GYN, and he had two offices.  I never met him, but didn't worry because again, I was supposed to have a midwife.  Except I went into labor on a weekend, and it was HIS turn to be on-call.  Let me just say that that man should NOT have been in his profession. At the time, I was limited by which practices would accept my insurance. I had chosen the one that was supposed to be the most labor-friendly, try-it-all-before-a-C-section group.  I didn't get a C-section, but that doctor was really trying to run the show in a way I didn't like, despite my best precautions.

There are other women in my area who've had their doctors move midway through pregnancies, or realized a few months in that they hated their doctor, and had problems finding a replacement.    These are women who are actively seeking prenatal care, too, not like the "God watches over me" Duggars.  One should have a regular doctor, but that also presumes health insurance, which was a luxury for a long time (and might be again soon, damnit). While I think things are improving overall for many pregnant women, there are always exceptions  (like fucking Texas: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/20/texas-maternal-mortality-rate-health-clinics-funding).