Unassisted Fundie Births

[polecat]

There's a lot to unpack here. But my inclination is more towards pity than snark. Fundy women have very little control over their lives and bodies -- and little education, as a rule, too. This is all by design and is a feature, not a bug.

Unassisted birth might be their (undeniably dangerous) way of taking control in the only way they can. 

[PennySycamore]

@chaotic life,  maybe you had this one terrible midwife we have in Greenville.  She abandoned one LLL Leader friend of mine at the ER entrance when the laboring woman ran into complications during labor.  According to another old Leader friend of mine, this midwife had been run out of other states before this and had been so bad that even the Amish ran her off.  There didn't seem to be anything that could be done about her practice either.  

My daughter and I did tour the birthing center run by this horrid midwife when she was pregnant nine years ago.  I knew this was not the place for my daughter when I saw To Train Up a Child on her bookrack in the waiting room.  My daughter looked up some stuff about TTUAC when she got back to work and was as horrified as I was.

[chaotic life]

[mention=12073]chaotic life[/mention],  maybe you had this one terrible midwife we have in Greenville.  She abandoned one LLL Leader friend of mine at the ER entrance when the laboring woman ran into complications during labor.  According to another old Leader friend of mine, this midwife had been run out of other states before this and had been so bad that even the Amish ran her off.  There didn't seem to be anything that could be done about her practice either.  
My daughter and I did tour the birthing center run by this horrid midwife when she was pregnant nine years ago.  I knew this was not the place for my daughter when I saw To Train Up a Child on her bookrack in the waiting room.  My daughter looked up some stuff about TTUAC when she got back to work and was as horrified as I was.

Um....actually, I am pretty sure that is the same midwife. Exact same time frame. Same horror stories I heard about her, and same geographical area. She had killed a baby just before I started seeing her, but the details did not fully come out until after I gave birth. And they only came out because she had convinced an OB to back her and it was the one and only homebirth that OB ever attended. But I don’t think anything more than being chased out of the local area happened to her. But yes, same area and the one I saw was chased out of the Amish communities too.

I’m not sure people realize how bad it has to be for the Amish to blackball you as a midwife.

I actually knew a woman she did not run out on but suffered a 3rd degree tear that I was never clear if she stitched (poorly) or super glued. But the poor mother was in the ER with a massive infection from her repair work a week after giving birth and suffered long term damage from it.

[Lisafer]

3 hours ago, chaotic life said:

I cannot find the exact story of the supposed congenital heart defect baby. However, it would be absolutely impossible to state one way or another if a congenital heart defect would have meant certain death in a hospital birth environment even in the 1980s. But the infection would have been equally responsible for the death for certain.

When I do shadow care for homebirthers, I STRONGLY encourage that 20 week anatomical ultrasound even if they refuse every other diagnostic test. My main explanation to them is that heart defects are nearly impossible to detect by Doppler (or heaven forbid fetoscope) and absolutely 100% you would want to have a baby with a significant birth defect in a hospital to give them the best chance of survival.

Matter of fact, after my second baby, I insisted on that ultrasound with my own births before I would ever consider myself cleared for Home birth back when I was birthing babies. Of course, all of mine had complications and got transported to the hospital for other reasons anyway. But my last one was my only planned hospital birth and that was because the midwife on the second to last one abandoned me when I went into labor and my choices were unassisted or unknown transport.

I went into childbearing as a pretty crunchy person, but have been very disappointed with the midwives in this area. Flaky, controlling, cold...you name it. I know it's not a representative sample, but it gave me a bad taste in my mouth regarding midwifery.

[chaotic life]

My patients I do shadow care on will not tell me who their midwives are. I get the protectiveness. I was once there. But thus far I am not terribly impressed with the care they are giving.

My policies are I do not deliver babies EVER, and if I risk you out and refer you to OB then I will not cover anymore of your care nor future pregnancies if you disregard my judgment.

I totally get that if I won’t cover them, no one will and they won’t check back in, they will just go underground again instead. But some of the practices in the local homebirthing community make me quite nervous.

I had a disagreement over whether a mother had a UTI or yeast. The midwife without seeing her kept insisting it was just yeast. I was all...yes, maybe you ALSO have yeast but the urine culture says you definitely have a UTI and that needs to be addressed ASAP or it will become an even bigger problem over time.

Also, it IS specifically within my scope of practice to provide prenatal and postnatal care. I did not become a CNM. I am not delivering babies! I will coordinate with your provider of your choice unless and until I feel you need more specialized care.

It’s primarily because I know how vital prenatal care IS and because I am fully aware that the low complication rates for home births are directly causative by the ability of prenatal care to properly identify and defer those too complicated for safe homebirths.

[EowynW]

Shitty midwives enrage me. I live in an area full of excellent midwives & birth centers as well as a couple of hospitals with nurse midwives. 

[Mrs. Bean]

@chaotic life what is a shadow care? 

[chaotic life]

[mention=12073]chaotic life[/mention] what is a shadow care? 

Basically, I provide prenatal care in line with ACOG guidelines and generally they also see a Home birthing midwife....who does whatever level of prenatal care they do or do not perform.

Generally, it means I do a lot of documentation of “patient refuses” but I can get them to agree to basic lab work and the routine prenatal screening fairly easily, which is better than what they would have otherwise.

As I said, I am trained in prenatal care and it is within my scope of practice. Birthing babies is NOT, and I genuinely have no desire to go there. First, I would have to get my CNM certification (which would never be worth the time and money in my state) and second it would skyrocket my malpractice insurance.

[Ozlsn]

On 7/10/2018 at 4:38 AM, VaSportsMom said:

I don’t think that she would plan a hospital birth. She would prioritize her ego and the opportunity to say “fuck you” to the naysayers over the well-being of her child. 

I tend to think she would prioritise her life a bit though. After nearly dying the last time you'd hope she might get a check up or two the next time.

[Granwych]

I read Spiritual Midwifery by Ina Mae Gaskin.  No thank you, I'll have my babies and Wychling will have hers in a hospital/birthing center with a licensed nurse midwife and/or an MD.  I never understood the whole "natural birth" experience--I just wanted a safely delivered, well-cared-for baby. 

[Jana814]

1 hour ago, Granwych said:

I read Spiritual Midwifery by Ina Mae Gaskin.  No thank you, I'll have my babies and Wychling will have hers in a hospital/birthing center with a licensed nurse midwife and/or an MD.  I never understood the whole "natural birth" experience--I just wanted a safely delivered, well-cared-for baby. 

I never got that either. My cousin’s wife wanted an all natural birth for their first son. However, he was 2 weeks late and she ended up having a c-section. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

10 hours ago, Granwych said:

I read Spiritual Midwifery by Ina Mae Gaskin.  No thank you, I'll have my babies and Wychling will have hers in a hospital/birthing center with a licensed nurse midwife and/or an MD.  I never understood the whole "natural birth" experience--I just wanted a safely delivered, well-cared-for baby. 

I had an all natural birth that I didn’t want. It was horrible. 

[jozina]

Unassisted births are such a bad idea, and lack of prenatal care is terrible too. What always scared me most when a woman came in without any prenatal care or ultrasounds was the potential for placenta problems. Serious congenital defects are of course potentially catastrophic, but they're rarer and there's usually more of a gradual onset of signs and more time to intervene. Placenta praevia or vasa praevia? You and/or your baby can be dead very quickly, and just examining the mother can trigger a catastrophic bleed. I've seen a hospital bed with sheets soaked in blood up to the shoulders in the time it took to hit the emergency button and run the patient the 50 metres from birth suite to theatre for instance. Or the ones coming in seizing because preeclampsia had been undetected and turned eclampsia. Or you can get a very post-dates stillbirth due to someone being a month off their due date.  I'm more on the other side of a birth now and I'd much sooner look after the baby than the mum in that situation.  Our midwives are absolutely excellent, thankfully, but I know very few who'd like a home birth.

 

(I'm a doctor who did most of my obstetrics training before ditching it for another specialty.)

[EowynW]

There are wild stories of some crazy women unassisted birthing in my area. A midwife friend of mine was approached by one of them, asking if she'd be their emergency backup. She said no since they were refusing all prenatal care. 

I remember one couple who did all prenatal care wanting a hands off birth. The midwife said, she'd sit in the next room and come in every bit for a check but that was as hands off as she would allow them to be. 

[NotQuiteMotY]

I just don't get the appeal. It's not like a licensed, trained midwife or OB won't listen to your requests (caveat: unless you're doing something risky for you and/or the baby).

I went into pregnancy with my son wanting a natural birth if possible. I ended up being induced for an issue they picked up in ultrasounds, but had him without other medications. Essentially, I could have had him unassisted, but it might have caused problems if I or someone else untrained "caught" him and didn't realize the issue in time to correct it. Even if there hadn't been a problem, I still would have preferred to be in a hospital because, to be blunt, shit happens. You can have a textbook healthy pregnancy and delivery and still have it go to worms in seconds during or after.

Other then the induction and attendant monitoring, I don't remember a doctor or nurse ordering me to take a particular position, med, anything. I could have refused to lie down for delivery, could have demanded pain meds, could have refused the post-birth screenings and medications for him, and while they might have argued on the grounds of patient safety, they couldn't have forced it unless I was dying.

I'm reminded of Zsu's most recent delivery, where she was pleasantly surprised at the way the doctors, gasp!, did what she asked!

[VaSportsMom]

I would love to hear that first story from the other side. She’s BSC. 

She had 3 easy pregnancies, followed by 3 safe deliveries that resulted in 3 happy, healthy babies but she felt ripped off and obligated to redeem those births even though she didn’t want more children?

[JermajestyDuggar]

7 hours ago, NotQuiteMotY said:

I'm reminded of Zsu's most recent delivery, where she was pleasantly surprised at the way the doctors, gasp!, did what she asked!

I think it’s because people demonize health care professionals online all the time while people with good hospital birth stories are less likely to share their story. If all you find online is blog after blog of people talking about horrible hospital births, you will start to believe that they are all that way. You have to look for both sides. I talked to my friends and family members about each hospital in my area and their experiences. I will trust them way more than I’ll trust some random person on the internet that had a bad hospital experience back in 1984.

[VaSportsMom]

“Finally we really went to praying, especially confessing any wrong thoughts, since by that time I had been really railing against God in my mind about how this was going.”

 

I have to wonder how many babies have been born to single parents thanks to this exercise. 

[RavenclawPajamas]

On 7/9/2018 at 7:07 PM, JermajestyDuggar said:

Did you read any of the other stories on this site?!?! Here’s a quote from another unassisted birth story:

“Yet this time the pulse of birth feels wonderful! I am building up to the birth climax after nine months of pleasurable foreplay. With one push the babe is in the canal. THE NEXT PUSH BRINGS HIM DOWN, DOWN INTO THAT SPACE JUST BEFORE ORGASM WHEN WE WOMEN KNOW HOW GOD MUST HAVE FELT CREATING THIS PLANET.....

HE COMES, AS DO I.”

This is... a thing, actually.  I first heard about it years ago.  I mean yeah, it does sound weird, but it also sounds preferable to pain, so.

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 minute ago, RavenclawPajamas said:

This is... a thing, actually.  I first heard about it years ago.  I mean yeah, it does sound weird, but it also sounds preferable to pain, so.

I had my kids in the hospital in front of a bunch of people. The thought of coming in front of them all while they stare at my crotch makes me want to rip my eyeballs out. So I guess it’s good that she had him alone and at home....

[apandaaries]

47 minutes ago, RavenclawPajamas said:

This is... a thing, actually.  I first heard about it years ago.  I mean yeah, it does sound weird, but it also sounds preferable to pain, so.

Yep, orgasmic birth. Apparently someone has made a documentary of some sort about it: https://www.orgasmicbirth.com/about/what-is-orgasmic-birth/ Not my personal experience, but it would have been better than all that pain. 

[Briefly]

48 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I had my kids in the hospital in front of a bunch of people. The thought of coming in front of them all while they stare at my crotch makes me want to rip my eyeballs out. So I guess it’s good that she had him alone and at home....

I always say that giving birth cured me of any modesty I may have had, because if it wasn't somebody's eyes on my privates then it was somebody's hands there!  The birth itself was normal, although the doctor did suspect that I might have to have a c-section due to the shape of my pelvic bones but I was able to give birth the "standard" way.  But I really would not have cared, the object was to have a healthy baby.

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 minute ago, Briefly said:

I always say that giving birth cured me of any modesty I may have had, because if it wasn't somebody's eyes on my privates then it was somebody's hands there!  The birth itself was normal, although the doctor did suspect that I might have to have a c-section due to the shape of my pelvic bones but I was able to give birth the "standard" way.  But I really would not have cared, the object was to have a healthy baby.

I suspect most people aim to have a healthy baby when giving birth. But I was still embarrassed when giving birth. I was able to be in extreme pain AND be embarrassed that I couldn’t control myself enough to stop screaming. I apologized to some staff members afterwards for my behavior. 

[EowynW]

4 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I think it’s because people demonize health care professionals online all the time while people with good hospital birth stories are less likely to share their story. If all you find online is blog after blog of people talking about horrible hospital births, you will start to believe that they are all that way. You have to look for both sides. I talked to my friends and family members about each hospital in my area and their experiences. I will trust them way more than I’ll trust some random person on the internet that had a bad hospital experience back in 1984.

Definitely. You must do your homework about hospitals, drs and midwives. Never be afraid to ask questions. Or stand up for yourself. 

 

 

[PennySycamore]

The same hormones that are responsible for orgasm are also responsible for the birth process.  Oxytocin is also responsible for the milk ejection reflex or MER.  (It used to be called the let-down reflex.)  A few mothers have found that they get turned on when they're nursing and most of those mothers are bothered by it.  

Anyway what I read one time about physical affection prior to and during labor is that those sexy feelings got your baby inside and maybe those same sexy feelings will help him/her get out.  Orgasmic birth is not exactly cultural, but probably isn''t as weird as it sounds.  No woman should feel pressure to have an orgasmic birth though.