Another bad statistic case for homebirth :(

[blackduckies]

These are truely sad cases and I am sure you would never get over the pain and it would be very hard not to blame yourself and others. My Dh.. best friends... sister is a midwife who decided on a homebirth... for various reasons by the time they picked up they had'nt heard the babies HB for a while and an ambulance got there the damage was done, the little baby boy died a couple of days later. it destroyed their friendship!!! her midwife friend could'nt live with herself and gave up her job and the mother herself moved from the hospital she was working in to another in Melb, she has since gone on the have 2 other babies both in hospital..it nearly cost them (her and her DP) there relationship and she is a very different person, just so tragic.

I guess it does'nt matter how careful you are or where you are, home or hospital....things can and do go wrong, babies and mums die, perhaps we don't hear what the numbers really are???

Footnote I noticed the other day at Monash in Clayton they have a midwife assisted homebirth clinic, the middies come to you at home for visits and the birth, I am not sure how well known these things are..I guess it is about being in the right place at the right time???

[Schmickers]

There is a huge difference between a chiro acting as a chiro and doula, supporting a woman who would otherwise be unsupported, and a chiro acting as a midwife suggesting to a mother that birth is always without complication and that she can handle it on her own. One is commendable and the other is a gross overstep of the mark.

Did it say somewhere in the article that the chiropractor gave such advice?

[Neenee Jellybeanie]

How awful, for everyone involved.
Unfortunately freebirth is often lumped into the same category as homebirth (which of course it is but it's different from having a midwife attended homebirth), so when studies examining the statistics come out saying that homebirth is X number of times more dangerous than hospital birth, freebirth (which to the best of my knowledge is not as safe as a midwife attended homebirth though I could be wrong) tends to increase the number of deaths that fall into the 'homebirth' category.

[Traveller]

Did it say somewhere in the article that the chiropractor gave such advice?

no, but there is a suggestion the chiro could be charged with something. My post was in reference to the fact that this may be fair, or completely wrong, depending on what the chiro was doing there.

As an aside, in the UK if a woman freebirths, anyone who is present can be charged with acting as a midwife (including their spouse) so if you freebirth you have to do it alone. In practice partners are rarely charged unless a baby dies but it is a legal minefield. I wonder if it is the same in Australia?

[Doodlebug]

This is so sad, the poor mother

Please excuse my ignorance on the differences, I don't know much about homebirth and freebirth but it intrigues me. Basically the difference is a homebirth has a midwife attending and is organised through an organisation (hospital or gp)???

Then how does a freebirth happen? I know a girl who had a homebirth and she had to apply for a midwife/doula (not sure?) to attend and be approved. Kind of like a screening process for high risk. Does this happen with freebirth or does the mother decide she doesn't want to have anyone with her and just doesn't go to hospital? If this is the case, does a freebirthing mother still have antenatal appts and check-ups at an ob / midwife / gp?

I hope my questions don't offend anyone, I'm not making any judgements, I'm just trying to understand a little more about the different ways to birth. Unfortunately, I have had multiple operations on my insides (ovaries, bowell, bladder) and have been strongly recommended a c-section for birth so I've never really looked into other options before.

[Oorki Galoorki]

free births are almost always homebirths.
that is why they are put together sharon women can do what they please when it comes to birth, if they want to have a highly medicalised birth they can see a doctor or OB, it is not compulsary to see a doctor when pg.
your friend would have gone through a hospital backed homebirth scheme.. Independant Midwives you look them up have a chat then decide if you want to employ them.

Im sorry that you have been strongly suggested to have a cs and not thought to see what your other options are, but you still can you have a few more weeks to decide and research if you feel like you want some thing else.

[Trillian]

Don't forget that everyone is commnting on a very small snippet of information - information that technically we should probably not know. So this isn't even a media beat up like it usually is.

To see both sides of the fence, maybe there could be blame, and hence why the police are involved. Maybe the Chiro or other person in attendance (if there was one) didn't think that they should call an ambulance till it was far too late - don't forget that a Chiro does not have the experience, knowledge or expertise to be attending a birth in the capacity of a 'care provider' for anything other than chiro so it would be unreasonable to even expect them to know until it happens that something wasn't right so it is a tragic catch22.

For the record, I do support homebirths 100% but I cannot support freebirth. maybe a with a very experienced Doula, but unless the mother or father of the baby is experienced in this area, how are they to know when something is not right? You don't have that objective voice of reason from a Midwife or a Doula to know that things aren't going as well as they should and maybe you need to think about getting extra help.

Either way this is a very very tragic situation and I hope that they are respected by the authorities and are allowed to grieve for this child as any other parent would be allowed to grieve. No doubt the parents are probably already torturing themselves more than anyone else could and I think that we should all try to understand the situation that led them to choose freebirth in the first place.

[Mummato2]

Yes it is. There is a difference between home birthing and free birthing, but a women's right to choose must always be held true.

If women were having their needs met in hospital then I suspect there would be a lot less free birthing. I'm not opposed to freebirth at all, but I think many women are forced into it as their only option and they would prefer to have other options.

May this family find peace one day, and I hope they know they're not alone in their grief.

:yeahthat:

[Mummato2]

what ****s me it that only homebirth mummas get put through the trauma of having the police come and storm in to their precious space with a baby who has passed.

Yep. Had this have happened in hospital under an OB it would be considered "one of those things" and we wouldn't have heard about it.

[Schmickers]

I am with Trillian. I would not choose to Freebirth with my DW or children as I believe it is less safe than either a homebirth or a hospital birth. It also greatly concerns me that as independent midwives struggle so hard to legitimise their livelihood and make the real benefits of homebirth known to the public, that those efforts are hampered because - as the OP states clearly in her thread title - so many people consider freebirth as the same thing as homebirth, when they are very, very different.

This is also one of the reasons why I would not homebirth twins, nor would I recommend it to someone else. A twin pregnancy is not a "normal" pregnancy in physiological terms, and while it is a very special and treasured experience, it is also one that should be approached with a healthy attitude and a certain level of caution. Things are more likely to go wrong during a twin birth.

My condolences go out to the family involved in this event.

[Traveller]

I very strongly considered homebirthing my twins because, although there is a higher degree of risk, many of the potential risks can be discounted before labour (namely those risks concerning the presentation of twin1). In my case twin 1 was cephalic, so I was not concerned. Equally my twins were not identical and were full term, so many of the other risk factors did not concern me.

In the end I did go to a midwife unit in a hospital though, because I decided in my case I was uncomfortable with a 50 minute blue light transfer to hospital time. However this was my choice, made in collaboration with my obstetrician and midwives. If I had been forced into a corner of hospital managed medical birth with mandatory epidural and continuous monitoring, or doing it on my own unassisted I would have most likely chosen the latter. So are the times we live in sadly. I wonder if the women this story concerns was faced with such a dilemma?

[AngelsMum]

If I had been forced into a corner of hospital managed medical birth with mandatory epidural and continuous monitoring, or doing it on my own unassisted I would have most likely chosen the latter. So are the times we live in sadly. I wonder if the women this story concerns was faced with such a dilemma?

I had these same thoughts. It may be very likely that the mother was never given any say in how she'd prefer to birth, but rather told how she would have to follow hospital policy.

What bugs me about discussions like these is that there wouldn't be a discussion if it happened in hospital because it is assumed "everything that could be done, would have been done." At the same time completely discounting the usual cascade of interventions may have led to the outcome. Instead the whole thread would have been offering condolences to the mother and her family instead of trying to find blame.

Whether I would choose to freebirth twins or not is really irrelevant. Each woman has the right to autonomy over her own body, which includes the choice of where & how to give birth. I doubt very much this woman would have entered into freebirthing lightly.

[Dedicated Doula Gillian]

This is so sad...
My thoughts and prayers go to the family.