Saturday, November 22, 2008

MDC homebirths 2008: death #14

She fired her OB because he wanted to induce her for postdates. The baby died.
My OB is insistent on an induction before I get to 42 weeks ... But when I asked today why we had to schedule an induction for monday, i was told that it would be malpractice for them not to. I then pointed out all our family babies are late, I was #4 and 3 weeks late, and told that that was the 70's and it's just not done that way anymore. I then asked what was the medical necessity for inducing me, and told that it would be medical malpractice to allow a pregnancy to go past 42 weeks. it was like talking to a wall. So I let them schedule me for Monday am- 4:45am- bleah.

what if I don't show up? can they fire me? can they just be mad at me, but still manage the pregnancy by monitoring a little longer? will I go to jail for not showing up?

I have good feelings that this pregnancy is fine, but that she's (and my body) not ready for birth yet...
Her compatriots on MDC encouraged her to risk her baby's life. Consider this from UC advocate Rixa Freeze of "The True Face of Birth":
... I would be very hesitant to agree to an induction... No need to interfere because of an arbitrary deadline, especially if that deadline may or may not be very accurate.
You were WRONG, Rixa. Do you plan on taking any responsibility for your role in this tragedy?

Early this morning, posted by another MDC member:
After a long labor, her daughter was finally born this morning (11/20) but it is not the happy ending we all were expecting.

Her daughter was born with a head full of black, curly hair, 8 pounds, 5 ounces, and she was born sleeping.

... She had a very long back labor and labored as long as she could at home with the midwives. I believe she transferred somewhere around dinner time last night to the hospital for pain relief. She and the baby were doing fine and the heart tones were good upon transfer. It's my understanding that once she arrived at the hospital ht's weren't detected and an US confirmed the baby had passed. She was started on Pit and the baby was born this morning. Txgirl said to let you all know the baby had the cord wrapped twice around her neck and the cord also appeared to be short. She went ahead and consented for an autopsy which may or may not provide more detail of what happened.
The baby was not born sleeping. Only live babies can sleep. The baby was born DEAD. Had the mother consented to the induction, the baby would almost certainly be alive today.

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posted by Amy Tuteur, MD @ 12:25 PM

1 Old Comments:

Rixa won't take any responsibility. Gaye Emmanuele in Australia is trying not to take any responsibility for refusing to call an ambulance for her client-who bled to death in a blow up pool after giving birth at home. Ironically the deceased was a leading home birth advocate in Australia! Silence all round from the hard core home birthers in Australia. I wonder if Janet Fraser would consider what happened to the deceased, who bled out due to her midwifes fanatacism 'birth murder' rather than 'birth rape'?

By Blogger Unknown, at 7:12 AM