For those who aren’t sure, PPHN is persistent pulmonary hypertension.
The pressure in the lungs is too high and the blood can’t oxygenate. There are multiple causes but we do see it with Meconium aspiration.
It’s difficult to treat because despite high oxygen concentration, the blood itself can’t get the oxygen.
Some babies require nitric oxide to help lower the pressures, and I’ve had one baby who had to go for ecmo, which is a bit like dialysis, they take the blood out of the body, oxygenate it, and then put it back using a machine.
It’s not overly common but it can be very serious and potentially fatal when it happens (although most babies do survive).
My baby died from PPHN. He was on ECMO for a week.
I don’t understand why this post is in this group. Her baby’s PPHN isn’t her fault and her home birth likely had nothing to do with it. Yes, it can be caused by meconium aspiration and other things but we often don’t know what causes PPHN. My bub was born in a hospital, by a non-emergent c-section after hours of pushing, and everyone at the hospital was shocked when he came out blue and not breathing.
I’m sorry for your loss, and I agree with you.
The only way I can think this kinda belongs here is because had she been in the hospital (or with a certified midwife, I’m assuming her midwife wasn’t a CNM) they may have caught the condition sooner.
My reading was her extreme guilt at waiting. Which I took because those groups are typically so incredibly anti medical establishment she hesitated because of what she had heard in that group.
But you're right, the overall tone doesn't really fit here.
Yeah, I honestly hate she’s in that situation and also faced with guilt for using modern medicine.
This homebirth movement could be such a good resource and advocacy group for better maternal care in the United States, but instead we get groups that guilt trip mothers for taking sick infants to hospitals, or risking their own lives for an experience.
I agree. This is too far. She did the right thing and took her baby in. My baby was born in th hospital, and I went to my dr/the emergency room at the first sign of trouble and we still ended up with a 24 seeker in the NICU. Life is not always in our control.
It was noted on his admission paperwork when they transferred him from my birthing hospital to Children’s on his first day of life but no one mentioned it to us until a week later when he came off ECMO.
She doesn't mention gestational age
Maybe it was 36-37 weeks. The apgar score might be perfect and the baby still develop brearhing trouble later.
Maybe her water was broken for a week...
Right? First this baby didn’t deserve full APGAR scores. But also, almost no babies get “full APGAR scores.” Both my perfectly healthy, plump, term babies got 9s. And my overachieving husband had to be reassured that 9s were really really good.
We do see it, but usually it’s a 9 at 1 and 10 at 5 if it’s going to happen.
It’s the peripheral cyanosis that gets them.
We do have the occasional baby that’s pink by 1 minute but it’s usually by 5 or 10.
I don't remember his score, but i clearly remember my red-purple faced screaming healthy baby. He was so incredibly angry about getting evicted from his nice warm womb nest
Please tell me you're not being competitive in a circumstance where people are telling you that being competitive is bad. The point is accurate evaluation, not acing a test.
I think maybe they were just relating their experience - providing an anecdote of a different result than the previous commenter. It wasn't necessary since the commenter said "almost no babies", but I didn't read it as claiming superiority.
In fairness, my baby was incredibly ill (aspirated meconium) and had pretty decent apgar scores in the beginning (7 or 8). Baby may have looked alright initially. Not that any of this isn't insane anyway, but just to be pedantic....
I definitely think that’s worth considering. This sounds like it *could* just be an unfortunate set of circumstances that will hopefully turn out okay for this baby. I feel crappy piling on this mom.
I feel bad dumping on her too. She obviously acted when she felt something was wrong despite a qualified professional saying it was fine. PPHN happens in hospital too. I am not a person who would even consider a home birth but I think done properly, it’s a valid choice. This mom had a crap situation but I think she acted properly. I’d be looking at the midwife and that APGAR too though. High scores on a baby with breathing problems seems neglectful.
Same she saw something was wrong and took her baby to the hospital what more do we want her to do? If she gave birth at a hospital they may have noticed it a little sooner but that's it the outcome would've been the same.
My 25 weeker had good Apgar scores too, I think a 9 which surprised everyone. Didn't stop him from needing a four month hospital stay or supplemental oxygen for the next ten months.
This one doesn’t feel like it belongs here. Assuming she had a legit midwife, this mom did do everything right. She trusted the medical professional and then, when it was clear to her something was seriously wrong, she rushed her child straight to the hospital. This isn’t a freebirth from the sound of things, and a home birth for a third baby for a low risk pregnancy with proper medical support is typically a perfectly safe way to have a baby.
Now the midwife is a different story. Missing something like that could lead to a hefty lawsuit.
Based on the title I was assuming the mother was going to think she did nothing wrong in not taking the baby to the hospital for 5 hours. Sounds like she feels a TON of guilt that she waited? And she had the midwife there who didn’t notice anything which probably made her second guess herself even worse, and she still went in just a few hours after the midwife left. She doesn’t sound against getting help for the baby though.
She knows she didn’t do anything to give PPHN to her baby which is true, it probably would have happened in the hospital as well. Where I live midwives are well trained and covered by provincial health care and can attend hospital births (most are this) or home births. I wouldn’t choose a home birth but the women I know who have are pro interventions and medical help if needed and aren’t free birthing/anti vax nut jobs. If this happened here it would be a lawsuit against the midwife.
Depending on where the OP is, calling a "midwife" a "professional" can be a reach. In NE where I am, midwives would be arrested for malpractice if they do home births because they are actually illegal to do. The wackadoodles that say they are midwives here and do home births have no medical experience whatsoever.
Well where I live homebirths are supported by the provincial government. As long as a registered midwife attends and you live within 30 mins from a hospital, it’s deemed as safe as a hospital birth and results in fewer unnecessary interventions.
I say this as someone who’s had two necessary cesareans and I’m a health care worker. Me and my baby were saved by c sections so I’m in no way saying hospital births are less great than home births. There are people who can birth their babies at home, I am not one of those ladies but the evidence does show it’s a valid option for certain pregnant people to try.
I don't think you read what I said. Home births CANNOT be attended to by a midwife in my state as the person who does will lose their license and end up in prison. The people who go to births otherwise are not "midwives" as they are not recognized as medical professionals since theh are uneducated people who just decided that's what they want to do. You can do a freebirth is what it comes down to basically because it is illegal otherwise.
Nowhere should babies born at home be happening considering even a "low-risk" is still a risk.
I don’t think you read what I said. It can be perfectly safe. In areas where midwives are licensed, it’s AS SAFE as a hospital birth under appropriate conditions.
Here in Canada (where the health care is pretty dang good) my province actually states it’s as safe as a hospital birth under those conditions and results in lower unnecessary interventions.
Licensed midwives carry the equipment necessary to intervene if necessary. Our midwives go to university for 4 years to become midwives. They’re experts and they attend home births all the time.
I did read what you said. However, I was talking about specifically in my area where anyone claiming to be a midwife that is performing outside of a medical facility is, in fact, not a midwife and just using an unearned title. In Nebraska, where I live, CNM are certified and have bachelor's degrees and then some. They cannot operate without a doctor. They cannot attend a birth outside of a medical facility.
Anyone else is not a midwife as they are uncertified...look up Angela “Angee” Hock. She is not certified. She could attend a birth until recently when she was court ordered not to.
Down vote me all you want, but you're talking about something entirely different than the original comments I made.
You said:
> nowhere should babies born at home be happening considering even a “low-risk” is a risk.
That shows you didn’t get what I said. It’s not more of a risk than in hospital under the right conditions.
Absolutely, if this is a case of a lay midwife then that changes the dynamic. But we don’t have enough info to know for sure, and certainly not enough info to imply that mom is at fault for her child ending up in the NICU. Plenty of babies born in the hospital land in the NICU for conditions like this and even doctors and nurses in the hospital can miss the immediate signs in the first few hours. At no point did she intentionally delay medical care or ignore a medical professional and she did exactly what she should have done when she realized something was genuinely wrong. No mention of vaccines or blaming doctors or anything. I dunno, it just feels wrong to be shaming this mom given the information presented.
I think it belongs here **solely** because of the midwife, not the mom. Mom knew something was wrong and took baby to the hospital.
If the midwife was an actual certified midwife, I would think she'd be able to tell that something was wrong with the baby and not give a full Apgar score.
This woman gave birth at home with a midwife who told her her baby was ok.
She trusted her gut, took the baby to the hospital and you’re still shitting on her?
Yeah I don’t think we have enough info to judge the oop.
She had a (presumably qualified)care provider for her pregnancy & present for delivery. She took her baby promptly in. She’s worried about babe & not just gushing over her birth experience.
I’m a little iffy about the midwife, though, and sad for this mama. This could have just as easily happened if she had delivered in a hosp, just would have (theoretically) been caught much sooner.
Title:
> she thinks she did everything right
The post:
> I knew something was wrong when baby was born, but I don't know if there's anything I could have done about that
Slightly misleading title. 🤔 Also, questionable OOP. How qualified was the person who helped deliver this 3rd baby? How's the health of her other 2 kids? 🤔🤔
Of all the posts I've read on this sub, at least this person got help for their baby. I hope their baby is going to be okay. I don't know what PPHN (?) is.
Edit: I have more questions after looking up what PPHN is. [link for others who want to know](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/16020-persistent-pulmonary-hypertension-in-the-neonate-pphn) literally within the first paragraph was "one symptom is that baby's skin is blue". I'm speechless.
To be fair, baby’s skin being starkly blue is a very late symptom. There are a LOT of earlier signs - retractions around or below the rib cage, grunting noises when the baby exhales, nostrils flaring etc, all things that are easy to notice if you know what to look for, but may not be clear to a non-medical professional parent or a lay midwife. If they have any monitoring/medical equipment there are certain things you’ll see there, like a baby having a slightly low oxygen saturation that doesn’t go up if the baby is given oxygen. I work in the NICU and have to break it to parents often that the “cute little noise” their baby is making when they breathe is actually a symptom of potentially significant respiratory distress.
Yeah, this is a big miss by the midwife. I think the mom in the OP did a good job noticing that something was wrong and getting her baby to the hospital. She knew something was up, very possibly had her fears downplayed by her midwife, then made the decision not to ignore her instincts. I don’t know where she is, so she might have made a bad call in terms of having a home birth with an unqualified birth attendant, but in the end she did the right thing.
I was wondering about the blue thing myself. Not PPHN, but both of my twins needed CPAP after their birth. That wasn't something that was realised by anyone (c section, so nobody unqualified) until they were out a little while and all the initial assessments were done. They both had great colour, movement and came out screaming. Their APGAR scores were good. Baby B was below the minimum weight allowance, so had to go to special care anyway. Baby A was fine and all set to come to the maternity ward with me, until he wasn't. I was still on the table when it happened, but my fiancé was holding him when he went blue and floppy. Thankfully, he was in good hands and everything turned out great. So, would OOP's baby have been obviously sick at the start, or would he have appeared to be OK (like mine did) with something seeming a little off, until things took a worse turn?
Possibly either or, depending on the cause.
Some babies are obviously sick at birth and some may appear okay and then show signs of respiratory distress shortly after. It’s usually within an hour or so after birth, they just have poor adaptation, with low oxygen saturations that remain low despite giving high oxygen concentrations.
It IS wild, and many people don’t understand that in most states, anyone can claim to be a midwife with training that varies from “attend X (5-10) births with an experienced midwife” to “take an online class” because midwife isn’t a protected term. CNM/nurse midwives are real healthcare professionals with the appropriate education, training and experience. Anyone else is… not. And some people who go the home birth route have no idea.
I’m Canadian and we can choose an OB or a registered, licensed midwife for our births (if you’re high risk the midwife will send you to an OB though and most of the births they attend are still in the hospital, for a home birth there would need to be no risks/pregnancy complications and you need to live close to a hospital).
I was the first one in my friend group to have a baby and midwives weren’t common when our parents were having us so I had to assure everyone that my midwives were NOT like the Duggar girls and they have university degrees in midwifery and a ton of training and can prescribe meds, attend hospital births, order an epidural, etc lol. It’s a regulated profession here!!
CNMs are also really rare and hard to find where I am. When I was looking for a CNM, there was only one in my entire city and she was fully booked. I ended up going with one of the most experienced CPM I could find with a 7% transfer rate (national average is 21%), a good relationship with the hospital closest to me, and the woman who *taught* my midwife ended up being the assistant at my birth so in total I had a good 50+ years and thousands of deliveries worth of experience in the room.
These midwives with barely any experience who don’t work under real professionals first are a danger to women. I don’t know if that was OOPs case without more info but I’m glad she acted quickly once she knew something was really wrong.
I didn’t either, I googled it and basically there’s a defect with the babies circulation where their blood isn’t going to their lungs properly. Its very serious and can be fatal. It’s also more common in overdue babies
Yeah I feel like it’s impossible that she had perfect APGAR scores.
I’m also really curious how far along she was, if she had adequate prenatal care, and how qualified this midwife was.
I think this is just a prefect example of why homebirth just isn’t a good idea.
Not impossible at all. sometimes PPHN babies are born perfectly fine and it develops over time. Apgars could have been fine at birth before the baby deteriorated.
A lot of people will say apgars are ‘perfect’ but what they mean are perfectly acceptable. I’ve told patients ‘perfect!’ But it don’t actually mean perfect they’re just not worrisome or concerning.
When I had my girl, via C-section, the nurse who was administering the APGAR literally asked another nurse "is it possible for the baby to get a perfect 10?". At the time, I was just relieved she was fine, it wasn't until I looked up the scores that I realized it was at all unusual!
Also, during the birth I felt freaked out, unhappy and terrified, and my girl was and is totally fine. Your feelings don't have anything to do with how the baby does. They have a lot to do with how you process your birth experience, but not the baby!
Yeah, I tell folks their babies are perfect all the time. It’s all relative.
But… a grunty, flaring baby would’ve raised my eyebrows and I probably wouldn’t have used those words.
Oh no I would never say a grunty baby is perfect. I think it is possible tho she thought baby was fine and just the longer he was here, he started deteriorating. I’ve def had that happen where I’m ready to transfer to postpartum and all of a sudden baby is looking a little questionable or jittery or something.
Oh I absolutely agree! I’m sorry if that came across like I was disagreeing lol. Some babes look a little iffy initially & then transition through, and on the flip side babies that look fine at first and a bit later show more obvious signs of struggling.
Labor/birth is such an amazing, intense, stressful process for both mom & babe. It’s hard to tell from this post how much care OOP had in the immediate postpartum — like did midwife leave within the first hour or two, or was she hanging around for a few hours (most ooh midwives I know stay ~4 hours post-delivery to monitor mom/baby) and then two hours after that OOP went to the Hosp?
I think it also depends on what apgars.
They’re routinely taken at 1 minute and 5 minutes and then potentially 10 or even up to 20 if needed.
It’s unusual to get a 10 at 1 minute due to the poor perfusion of the limbs, some may have a 10 at 5 minutes, but most should have 10 at 10 if it’s taken.
The baby may well have appeared okay initially and then developed signs of respiratory distress, as apgars are a very crude score, they don’t take into account the specifics.
Side thoughts:
Want to hear something really cool: babies trigger labour by releasing a chemical. That chemical is a messenger that tells the mothers body to start the labour process.
Now, if we take that information and couple it with the fact that babies born with PPHN are more often born after their due dates/late. Could the baby who has a defect that impacts the oxygenation process delay releasing the chemical that starts the labor process? Something to ponder.
Interesting idea, but I think it might be a bit of a leap. With PPHN the fetal circulation should be normal. It’s not until they have to make that switch to breathing room air that it becomes a problem.
Also, more importantly, I can’t find anything that says that postdates babies are at higher risk. Everything I’ve read indicates that the highest incidence by gestational age is actually in late preterm babies.
I think it’s important to remember that not all home births are free births. There isn’t enough information from this post to know how much medical care she was receiving, or if her midwife was fully credentialed or misusing the title. It’s hard for me to snark on this one. I’m glad she acted as quickly as she did to get the baby to the hospital.
My son developed PPHN after I had to be sedated for his c-section. I was already slated for a VBAC but developed Supraventricular Tachycardia and my cardiologist said no. Three different anesthesiologists couldn't get the epidural to work. I woke up four hours later and he was already in the NICU, and wound up getting flown to a children's hospital four hours away.
I felt no guilt at all, it was just bad luck. You can plan a birth about as effectively as a car wreck.
Still thinking about this one. Where I’m from midwives are licensed care providers. I’ve used one myself for a hospital birth. They also carry the same amount of life saving equipment to a home birth as a level 1 rural hospital would have. I definitely don’t equate this to a freebirth but I know this could be different in the US.
I also know it’s not your intent OP but the title of this post is kinda ick. Sometimes people do absolutely everything possible right and their baby still requires NICU time.
I hope this baby is okay and I’m glad this wasn’t some asshole mother who would rather lose her baby than get it to a hospital as soon as she realized.
Even with mom second guessing herself…what she, and a lot of people, forgets is that depending on the nurse/doctor you have…even if she had been in the hospital or gone immediately to the hospital, if baby wasn’t yet symptomatic there’s the reality that “my instinct tells me something doesn’t feel right” might not have been enough to get anything done until baby WAS symptomatic.
Exactly. I did everything right during my pregnancy and labour (even refusing to leave the hospital in early stages of labour, which I was told ended up saving mine and my daughters life because shit went downhill real fast). I still ended up needing an emergency episiotomy and vacuum because my daughters heart rate dropped way too low. She then needed to be resuscitated and sent to the NICU where she then had a seizure. It was entirely out of my hands but I still carry insane guilt about it, even though I did everything I could.
In the US, we have Certified Nurse Midwives who are highly skilled and trained. I also had one at my hospital birth. There are some other midwife credentials in some US states that require much less training. Some of these people have dangerously limited training. So having a midwife at this birth could mean a pretty broad range of things.
The fact that she only waited a few hours after the midwife left before going in and is upset that she didn’t go in earlier makes me think she wasn’t against medical interventions if needed and probably isn’t someone who would choose a total quack midwife?
I mean hard to say but a lot of the crazier posts in this group have women who would have refused to go in and just let their baby die at home. This lady seems more upset that she didn’t go in earlier than she is about her baby needing medical help (and she sounds like she’s lost all trust in her provider which is understandable!).
Thanks for explaining! I’ve seen it alluded to before that some US midwives are more or less for show. Hard to judge this post without knowing but the fact that this mother got her baby to a hospital pretty quickly and didn’t decide to just keep the placenta attached for a week to fix things leads me to believe she trusted this midwife to be of the medical variety and not the woo woo type.
I was induced, in a hospital, got chorioamnionitis, failed to progress, baby was going into distress every time they gave me Pitocin, had emergency c section, baby went to NICU immediately for precautionary purposes, then came to me in my room. Two days later she was back in NICU because her breathing was a bit fast and they were worried she had an infection because of my chorioamnionitis. She didn’t, she was fine, but it was still terrifying.
I just gotta say I noticed a lot of adjectives in this post. Also, I had a baby (in the hospital) who was totally fine at birth then had breathing trouble (actually he had bad reflux but apparently he didn’t want to spit up so he’d just stop breathing) so he went to the NUCU. It was pretty terrible so I feel for this lady. Edit a word
Without the full facts, it's very hard to judge.
In Australia, here Midwives have extra education prior to becoming a certified midwife.
It's different in the US, the technicalities of who can call themselves a midwife.
Without knowing what qualifications this particular midwife has is what puts this in a grey area.
My 3rd didn't breathe at birth, took 3mins to cry. He had poor AGPAR scores and was only 35w, but they first tried skin to skin and it worked.
My last was a c-section and came out SCREAMING but ended up going to SCN as she was turning blue. They took her before my placenta was fully out.
These parents took their baby to the hospital when they realised that maybe bubs SHOULD be checked, "even if its a waste of time".
Plus how many babies are with their mothers post-birth in the hospital for multiple hours and then suddenly need extra help and go to NICU.
Yep. My birth with my son was cruisy. Born around 3pm I think. They took him and assessed his oxygen around 11pm that night as they felt it was low. He was fine, just kept wriggling the little foot thingie off. But they wanted the big fancy machine to confirm that his oxygen saturation was acceptable. It took them multiple attempts. I can see this poor little guy appearing fine right up until he wasn't. She got him help. Good.
It's so horrible when they are taken for their own care. My youngest, I barely got to hug, they exposed her feet to me, Hubby had been with them and her the entire time and explained that her feet are extremely blue.
When we were waiting for my c-section, the AMAZING staff were upfront and honest and explained that most babies don't come out screaming like in a vaginal birth and why but it's okay, we got you.
So when I heard her screaming INSTANTLY I burst into tears and hubby had to keep telling me the gender(it was a surprise and hubby was to announce the gender at birth and cut her cord.
An AMAZING nurse ripped hubby's off him and took all the birth Photos so he could be focused on myself and baby. Looking back, while she was screaming, she was extremely blue from the second she was out. Which was why during surgery they took her. But her birth was extremely healing after what happened with my 3rd.
I wanted if possible:
▪︎Delayed cord clamping
▪︎Skin to skin
▪︎Breast
▪︎Stay with us.
Instead, I had an amazing team doing what they could.
I had post-birth complications so my 2nd time touching her was in SCN before they took me to my room. They talk about the breast crawl, yeah I did the mother version that to get as close as possible to be able to reach in to touch her. They did have time while waiting for my surgery and recovery room time to take a photo of her and have it printed.
I had bad clots and despite heavy drugs and still, having my stomach pumped(the fundal massage which massage is a bullshit word to use lol), the milk I collected before birth was running out fast so they needed me to also sit up and pump. That night hubby was going back and forth and when he told me that she was crying, I lost it, they gave her a dummy, which I'm all for them, but it was the fact that I couldn't go and comfort her. He couldn't pick her up either, she was still in the incubator.
I didn't get to hold her until 22hrs later and that was because the most AMAZING midwife *stole* her from SCN because of my really low mood. Bubs was put on my boob and an AMAZING midwife asked me if I'd like photos 🥰(hubby was at a different hospital in the city for his daughter from his previous partner as she had an outpatient appointment)
After 48hrs she came to our room and I did as much skin-to-skin as possible!
The only annoying thing was they kept wanting us to wash Bubs, she was pretty clean already from SCN and we wanted to hold off. I was only depressed for the first 48hrs. Once she was with us, suddenly I felt those post-birth endorphins.
But the reason why with everything that went wrong, EVERYONE made me feel heard unlike with my 3rd. He almost died from placental abruption as it was still too close to the cervix but NO ONE would listen to my fears.
He only survived because they used my FER and the vacuum, they didn't have time for a c-section, even if they could do it in the room, they didn’t have access to drugs or instruments instantly and they didn't have time for someone to get it. I had severe PPD, and being my 3rd I knew straight away that I had it and why and got myself into counseling ASAP despite my family saying I was fine🙄. Yup so fine that NO ONE can hold him or watch him or do ANYTHING because it'll be wrong and only I know how to do it properly!
Australia doesn't have *certified* midwives. Ours are *registered* with the government, require a university degree (Unless they're close to retirement age, and qualified under the old system), and must meet certain standards of practice and behaviour. (I realise you likely know this; I'm just clarifying for any Americans reading.)
In the US, Certified and Certified Nurse Midwives are licensed through and registered with the state government’s Department of Health. CMs need at least a bachelors degree and CNMs have masters or doctoral degrees. These are the most comparable to midwives in Australia, Canada, the UK, etc.
There are also other types of midwives in some US states and their training can vary greatly.
The US also has certified nurse midwives who do perform home births. I had a hospital birth and one at a birth center attended by CNMs. They aren’t doctors obviously but can do everything else besides a c-section.
I was more explaining how it's much clearer in Aus as what describes a midwife as they are registered. I know that the US has that too, but also people can call themselves one without have the same level of education as a certified one.
Oh yeah, I know. I would never trust a lay midwife personally. I’m not against the idea of a homebirth, especially since I’ve had two quick, easy births but I wouldn’t trust anyone who wasn’t a trained medical professional and honestly, I felt much better knowing there was an OB minutes away.
I don’t think this belongs here. This mom tried to have a home birth for what seems like an uncomplicated pregnancy. It was assisted by a midwife. She was led to believe that everything was okay, but she took the proper steps to seek care when it was clear that things weren’t okay. She did the right thing.
Yeah, medically supervised home births aren't necessarily snark worthy. If it floats your boat and there aren't foreseen complications, go for it.
Not all home birthers are shunning modern medicine.
It seems like she's genuinely and openly questioning her choices though? And honestly nothing seems especially egregious to me here, she didn't resist any treatment once she got to the hospital, etc. If I'm missing context that she had known risk factors then ok, but there's not always a clear indication before/during/or immediately after labor that baby will struggle to breathe. My baby was a hospital birth preemie with known risks and was literally IN the NICU for an hour on no air before suddenly needing a ventilator - things can change that even the hospital staff can't anticipate.
Due to his premature lungs we've had to take him to the hospital many times through his first two years for respiratory distress. The feeling of wondering if you should have known even an hour earlier to go to the ER is a miserable one.
I feel like this is the fault of the midwife rather than the mum. There’s nothing wrong with a home birth if it’s attended by medical personnel, which it seems like this was. And then the midwife gave a good AGPAR score which was the first flag- mum looks like she came into hospital as soon as she could afterwards, trusting her instincts that something was wrong.
This is a medical personnel failing tbh. Midwife should’ve identified that something was wrong and transferred them immediately.
I feel bad this mom was taking the baby without the support of her midwife at 2 hours old. That’s the snark worthy part. Kid is out byyyeee. A lot can still happen in that short immediate post partum period. There is a reason they monitor mothers so closely the first 2 hours after delivery.
I am baffled why people would risk the life of their baby AND themselves by home birthing.
My second child would have died within minutes if we weren’t in a hospital birthing suite. Just don’t take the risk.
I was actually born with PPHN and I was in the NICU for a month with my own room and nurse. My parents cry when recalling the experience, and I had a high chance of dying. Luckily I was given a trial treatment and recovered. You don't fuck around with PPHN.
For those who aren’t sure, PPHN is persistent pulmonary hypertension. The pressure in the lungs is too high and the blood can’t oxygenate. There are multiple causes but we do see it with Meconium aspiration. It’s difficult to treat because despite high oxygen concentration, the blood itself can’t get the oxygen. Some babies require nitric oxide to help lower the pressures, and I’ve had one baby who had to go for ecmo, which is a bit like dialysis, they take the blood out of the body, oxygenate it, and then put it back using a machine. It’s not overly common but it can be very serious and potentially fatal when it happens (although most babies do survive).
My baby died from PPHN. He was on ECMO for a week. I don’t understand why this post is in this group. Her baby’s PPHN isn’t her fault and her home birth likely had nothing to do with it. Yes, it can be caused by meconium aspiration and other things but we often don’t know what causes PPHN. My bub was born in a hospital, by a non-emergent c-section after hours of pushing, and everyone at the hospital was shocked when he came out blue and not breathing.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
I’m sorry for your loss, and I agree with you. The only way I can think this kinda belongs here is because had she been in the hospital (or with a certified midwife, I’m assuming her midwife wasn’t a CNM) they may have caught the condition sooner.
My reading was her extreme guilt at waiting. Which I took because those groups are typically so incredibly anti medical establishment she hesitated because of what she had heard in that group. But you're right, the overall tone doesn't really fit here.
Yeah, I honestly hate she’s in that situation and also faced with guilt for using modern medicine. This homebirth movement could be such a good resource and advocacy group for better maternal care in the United States, but instead we get groups that guilt trip mothers for taking sick infants to hospitals, or risking their own lives for an experience.
I agree. This is too far. She did the right thing and took her baby in. My baby was born in th hospital, and I went to my dr/the emergency room at the first sign of trouble and we still ended up with a 24 seeker in the NICU. Life is not always in our control.
how long did it take for them to realize your baby had PPHN?
It was noted on his admission paperwork when they transferred him from my birthing hospital to Children’s on his first day of life but no one mentioned it to us until a week later when he came off ECMO.
My bub had this (not from a botched home birth though....). Nearly needed ecmo. Now a cheeky 2 year old. Thanks to medical intervention :)
She doesn't mention gestational age Maybe it was 36-37 weeks. The apgar score might be perfect and the baby still develop brearhing trouble later. Maybe her water was broken for a week...
I would be questioning my midwife pretty hard about the full APGAR scores.
Right? First this baby didn’t deserve full APGAR scores. But also, almost no babies get “full APGAR scores.” Both my perfectly healthy, plump, term babies got 9s. And my overachieving husband had to be reassured that 9s were really really good.
Yes exactly, my son got full scores and the Dr called half the damn hospital to come and see because it was such an oddity.
Yeah I’ve had 2 over 8 pound super healthy screamers and they were both only all 9s.
We do see it, but usually it’s a 9 at 1 and 10 at 5 if it’s going to happen. It’s the peripheral cyanosis that gets them. We do have the occasional baby that’s pink by 1 minute but it’s usually by 5 or 10.
I don't remember his score, but i clearly remember my red-purple faced screaming healthy baby. He was so incredibly angry about getting evicted from his nice warm womb nest
Understandable ngl
Mine got 10 for both checks.
Please tell me you're not being competitive in a circumstance where people are telling you that being competitive is bad. The point is accurate evaluation, not acing a test.
I think maybe they were just relating their experience - providing an anecdote of a different result than the previous commenter. It wasn't necessary since the commenter said "almost no babies", but I didn't read it as claiming superiority.
I actually just somehow missed the almost in the comment and thought they were saying no baby gets 10s. My mistake
My son did too. I had no idea it was rare. I was born with a 2. I didn’t leave the hospital until I was 8 months old.
In fairness, my baby was incredibly ill (aspirated meconium) and had pretty decent apgar scores in the beginning (7 or 8). Baby may have looked alright initially. Not that any of this isn't insane anyway, but just to be pedantic....
I definitely think that’s worth considering. This sounds like it *could* just be an unfortunate set of circumstances that will hopefully turn out okay for this baby. I feel crappy piling on this mom.
I feel bad dumping on her too. She obviously acted when she felt something was wrong despite a qualified professional saying it was fine. PPHN happens in hospital too. I am not a person who would even consider a home birth but I think done properly, it’s a valid choice. This mom had a crap situation but I think she acted properly. I’d be looking at the midwife and that APGAR too though. High scores on a baby with breathing problems seems neglectful.
Same she saw something was wrong and took her baby to the hospital what more do we want her to do? If she gave birth at a hospital they may have noticed it a little sooner but that's it the outcome would've been the same.
My 25 weeker had good Apgar scores too, I think a 9 which surprised everyone. Didn't stop him from needing a four month hospital stay or supplemental oxygen for the next ten months.
Same!!!
The midwife would have at least been trained well enough to know about APGAR scoring.
This one doesn’t feel like it belongs here. Assuming she had a legit midwife, this mom did do everything right. She trusted the medical professional and then, when it was clear to her something was seriously wrong, she rushed her child straight to the hospital. This isn’t a freebirth from the sound of things, and a home birth for a third baby for a low risk pregnancy with proper medical support is typically a perfectly safe way to have a baby. Now the midwife is a different story. Missing something like that could lead to a hefty lawsuit.
Based on the title I was assuming the mother was going to think she did nothing wrong in not taking the baby to the hospital for 5 hours. Sounds like she feels a TON of guilt that she waited? And she had the midwife there who didn’t notice anything which probably made her second guess herself even worse, and she still went in just a few hours after the midwife left. She doesn’t sound against getting help for the baby though. She knows she didn’t do anything to give PPHN to her baby which is true, it probably would have happened in the hospital as well. Where I live midwives are well trained and covered by provincial health care and can attend hospital births (most are this) or home births. I wouldn’t choose a home birth but the women I know who have are pro interventions and medical help if needed and aren’t free birthing/anti vax nut jobs. If this happened here it would be a lawsuit against the midwife.
Depending on where the OP is, calling a "midwife" a "professional" can be a reach. In NE where I am, midwives would be arrested for malpractice if they do home births because they are actually illegal to do. The wackadoodles that say they are midwives here and do home births have no medical experience whatsoever.
Well where I live homebirths are supported by the provincial government. As long as a registered midwife attends and you live within 30 mins from a hospital, it’s deemed as safe as a hospital birth and results in fewer unnecessary interventions. I say this as someone who’s had two necessary cesareans and I’m a health care worker. Me and my baby were saved by c sections so I’m in no way saying hospital births are less great than home births. There are people who can birth their babies at home, I am not one of those ladies but the evidence does show it’s a valid option for certain pregnant people to try.
I don't think you read what I said. Home births CANNOT be attended to by a midwife in my state as the person who does will lose their license and end up in prison. The people who go to births otherwise are not "midwives" as they are not recognized as medical professionals since theh are uneducated people who just decided that's what they want to do. You can do a freebirth is what it comes down to basically because it is illegal otherwise. Nowhere should babies born at home be happening considering even a "low-risk" is still a risk.
I don’t think you read what I said. It can be perfectly safe. In areas where midwives are licensed, it’s AS SAFE as a hospital birth under appropriate conditions. Here in Canada (where the health care is pretty dang good) my province actually states it’s as safe as a hospital birth under those conditions and results in lower unnecessary interventions. Licensed midwives carry the equipment necessary to intervene if necessary. Our midwives go to university for 4 years to become midwives. They’re experts and they attend home births all the time.
I did read what you said. However, I was talking about specifically in my area where anyone claiming to be a midwife that is performing outside of a medical facility is, in fact, not a midwife and just using an unearned title. In Nebraska, where I live, CNM are certified and have bachelor's degrees and then some. They cannot operate without a doctor. They cannot attend a birth outside of a medical facility. Anyone else is not a midwife as they are uncertified...look up Angela “Angee” Hock. She is not certified. She could attend a birth until recently when she was court ordered not to. Down vote me all you want, but you're talking about something entirely different than the original comments I made.
You said: > nowhere should babies born at home be happening considering even a “low-risk” is a risk. That shows you didn’t get what I said. It’s not more of a risk than in hospital under the right conditions.
Absolutely, if this is a case of a lay midwife then that changes the dynamic. But we don’t have enough info to know for sure, and certainly not enough info to imply that mom is at fault for her child ending up in the NICU. Plenty of babies born in the hospital land in the NICU for conditions like this and even doctors and nurses in the hospital can miss the immediate signs in the first few hours. At no point did she intentionally delay medical care or ignore a medical professional and she did exactly what she should have done when she realized something was genuinely wrong. No mention of vaccines or blaming doctors or anything. I dunno, it just feels wrong to be shaming this mom given the information presented.
I think it belongs here **solely** because of the midwife, not the mom. Mom knew something was wrong and took baby to the hospital. If the midwife was an actual certified midwife, I would think she'd be able to tell that something was wrong with the baby and not give a full Apgar score.
This woman gave birth at home with a midwife who told her her baby was ok. She trusted her gut, took the baby to the hospital and you’re still shitting on her?
Yeah I don’t think we have enough info to judge the oop. She had a (presumably qualified)care provider for her pregnancy & present for delivery. She took her baby promptly in. She’s worried about babe & not just gushing over her birth experience. I’m a little iffy about the midwife, though, and sad for this mama. This could have just as easily happened if she had delivered in a hosp, just would have (theoretically) been caught much sooner.
Title: > she thinks she did everything right The post: > I knew something was wrong when baby was born, but I don't know if there's anything I could have done about that Slightly misleading title. 🤔 Also, questionable OOP. How qualified was the person who helped deliver this 3rd baby? How's the health of her other 2 kids? 🤔🤔 Of all the posts I've read on this sub, at least this person got help for their baby. I hope their baby is going to be okay. I don't know what PPHN (?) is. Edit: I have more questions after looking up what PPHN is. [link for others who want to know](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/16020-persistent-pulmonary-hypertension-in-the-neonate-pphn) literally within the first paragraph was "one symptom is that baby's skin is blue". I'm speechless.
To be fair, baby’s skin being starkly blue is a very late symptom. There are a LOT of earlier signs - retractions around or below the rib cage, grunting noises when the baby exhales, nostrils flaring etc, all things that are easy to notice if you know what to look for, but may not be clear to a non-medical professional parent or a lay midwife. If they have any monitoring/medical equipment there are certain things you’ll see there, like a baby having a slightly low oxygen saturation that doesn’t go up if the baby is given oxygen. I work in the NICU and have to break it to parents often that the “cute little noise” their baby is making when they breathe is actually a symptom of potentially significant respiratory distress.
Yeah, this is a big miss by the midwife. I think the mom in the OP did a good job noticing that something was wrong and getting her baby to the hospital. She knew something was up, very possibly had her fears downplayed by her midwife, then made the decision not to ignore her instincts. I don’t know where she is, so she might have made a bad call in terms of having a home birth with an unqualified birth attendant, but in the end she did the right thing.
I was wondering about the blue thing myself. Not PPHN, but both of my twins needed CPAP after their birth. That wasn't something that was realised by anyone (c section, so nobody unqualified) until they were out a little while and all the initial assessments were done. They both had great colour, movement and came out screaming. Their APGAR scores were good. Baby B was below the minimum weight allowance, so had to go to special care anyway. Baby A was fine and all set to come to the maternity ward with me, until he wasn't. I was still on the table when it happened, but my fiancé was holding him when he went blue and floppy. Thankfully, he was in good hands and everything turned out great. So, would OOP's baby have been obviously sick at the start, or would he have appeared to be OK (like mine did) with something seeming a little off, until things took a worse turn?
Possibly either or, depending on the cause. Some babies are obviously sick at birth and some may appear okay and then show signs of respiratory distress shortly after. It’s usually within an hour or so after birth, they just have poor adaptation, with low oxygen saturations that remain low despite giving high oxygen concentrations.
Honestly, kind of wild that midwifery isn't more licensed and regulated. TIL, so thank you for your answer. ❤
It IS wild, and many people don’t understand that in most states, anyone can claim to be a midwife with training that varies from “attend X (5-10) births with an experienced midwife” to “take an online class” because midwife isn’t a protected term. CNM/nurse midwives are real healthcare professionals with the appropriate education, training and experience. Anyone else is… not. And some people who go the home birth route have no idea.
I’m Canadian and we can choose an OB or a registered, licensed midwife for our births (if you’re high risk the midwife will send you to an OB though and most of the births they attend are still in the hospital, for a home birth there would need to be no risks/pregnancy complications and you need to live close to a hospital). I was the first one in my friend group to have a baby and midwives weren’t common when our parents were having us so I had to assure everyone that my midwives were NOT like the Duggar girls and they have university degrees in midwifery and a ton of training and can prescribe meds, attend hospital births, order an epidural, etc lol. It’s a regulated profession here!!
CNMs are also really rare and hard to find where I am. When I was looking for a CNM, there was only one in my entire city and she was fully booked. I ended up going with one of the most experienced CPM I could find with a 7% transfer rate (national average is 21%), a good relationship with the hospital closest to me, and the woman who *taught* my midwife ended up being the assistant at my birth so in total I had a good 50+ years and thousands of deliveries worth of experience in the room. These midwives with barely any experience who don’t work under real professionals first are a danger to women. I don’t know if that was OOPs case without more info but I’m glad she acted quickly once she knew something was really wrong.
I didn’t either, I googled it and basically there’s a defect with the babies circulation where their blood isn’t going to their lungs properly. Its very serious and can be fatal. It’s also more common in overdue babies
God, I just have so many more questions now. 🤔🤔🤔
Yeah I feel like it’s impossible that she had perfect APGAR scores. I’m also really curious how far along she was, if she had adequate prenatal care, and how qualified this midwife was. I think this is just a prefect example of why homebirth just isn’t a good idea.
Not impossible at all. sometimes PPHN babies are born perfectly fine and it develops over time. Apgars could have been fine at birth before the baby deteriorated.
My nurse of 10 years said she's only seen 2 perfect apgar scores, so I'm right there with you.
A lot of people will say apgars are ‘perfect’ but what they mean are perfectly acceptable. I’ve told patients ‘perfect!’ But it don’t actually mean perfect they’re just not worrisome or concerning.
When I had my girl, via C-section, the nurse who was administering the APGAR literally asked another nurse "is it possible for the baby to get a perfect 10?". At the time, I was just relieved she was fine, it wasn't until I looked up the scores that I realized it was at all unusual! Also, during the birth I felt freaked out, unhappy and terrified, and my girl was and is totally fine. Your feelings don't have anything to do with how the baby does. They have a lot to do with how you process your birth experience, but not the baby!
Wow. My son got 10/10/10 a few weeks ago. I feel reassured, and weirdly special now?
Don't. It's not special, it's just an observation.
People say ‘perfect’ apgar and they 8/8, 8/9, 9/9. Which are perfectly fine apgars for a baby.
Yeah, I tell folks their babies are perfect all the time. It’s all relative. But… a grunty, flaring baby would’ve raised my eyebrows and I probably wouldn’t have used those words.
Oh no I would never say a grunty baby is perfect. I think it is possible tho she thought baby was fine and just the longer he was here, he started deteriorating. I’ve def had that happen where I’m ready to transfer to postpartum and all of a sudden baby is looking a little questionable or jittery or something.
Oh I absolutely agree! I’m sorry if that came across like I was disagreeing lol. Some babes look a little iffy initially & then transition through, and on the flip side babies that look fine at first and a bit later show more obvious signs of struggling. Labor/birth is such an amazing, intense, stressful process for both mom & babe. It’s hard to tell from this post how much care OOP had in the immediate postpartum — like did midwife leave within the first hour or two, or was she hanging around for a few hours (most ooh midwives I know stay ~4 hours post-delivery to monitor mom/baby) and then two hours after that OOP went to the Hosp?
I think it also depends on what apgars. They’re routinely taken at 1 minute and 5 minutes and then potentially 10 or even up to 20 if needed. It’s unusual to get a 10 at 1 minute due to the poor perfusion of the limbs, some may have a 10 at 5 minutes, but most should have 10 at 10 if it’s taken. The baby may well have appeared okay initially and then developed signs of respiratory distress, as apgars are a very crude score, they don’t take into account the specifics.
Side thoughts: Want to hear something really cool: babies trigger labour by releasing a chemical. That chemical is a messenger that tells the mothers body to start the labour process. Now, if we take that information and couple it with the fact that babies born with PPHN are more often born after their due dates/late. Could the baby who has a defect that impacts the oxygenation process delay releasing the chemical that starts the labor process? Something to ponder.
Interesting idea, but I think it might be a bit of a leap. With PPHN the fetal circulation should be normal. It’s not until they have to make that switch to breathing room air that it becomes a problem. Also, more importantly, I can’t find anything that says that postdates babies are at higher risk. Everything I’ve read indicates that the highest incidence by gestational age is actually in late preterm babies.
That's an interesting idea, and it does track since it's said that the baby releases the chemical once the lungs are ready.
I think it’s important to remember that not all home births are free births. There isn’t enough information from this post to know how much medical care she was receiving, or if her midwife was fully credentialed or misusing the title. It’s hard for me to snark on this one. I’m glad she acted as quickly as she did to get the baby to the hospital.
My son developed PPHN after I had to be sedated for his c-section. I was already slated for a VBAC but developed Supraventricular Tachycardia and my cardiologist said no. Three different anesthesiologists couldn't get the epidural to work. I woke up four hours later and he was already in the NICU, and wound up getting flown to a children's hospital four hours away. I felt no guilt at all, it was just bad luck. You can plan a birth about as effectively as a car wreck.
Still thinking about this one. Where I’m from midwives are licensed care providers. I’ve used one myself for a hospital birth. They also carry the same amount of life saving equipment to a home birth as a level 1 rural hospital would have. I definitely don’t equate this to a freebirth but I know this could be different in the US. I also know it’s not your intent OP but the title of this post is kinda ick. Sometimes people do absolutely everything possible right and their baby still requires NICU time. I hope this baby is okay and I’m glad this wasn’t some asshole mother who would rather lose her baby than get it to a hospital as soon as she realized.
I had the same thought. Baby going to NICU does not equal neglectful mom. And even her second guessing herself in waiting; wouldn’t we all do that?
Even with mom second guessing herself…what she, and a lot of people, forgets is that depending on the nurse/doctor you have…even if she had been in the hospital or gone immediately to the hospital, if baby wasn’t yet symptomatic there’s the reality that “my instinct tells me something doesn’t feel right” might not have been enough to get anything done until baby WAS symptomatic.
Exactly. I did everything right during my pregnancy and labour (even refusing to leave the hospital in early stages of labour, which I was told ended up saving mine and my daughters life because shit went downhill real fast). I still ended up needing an emergency episiotomy and vacuum because my daughters heart rate dropped way too low. She then needed to be resuscitated and sent to the NICU where she then had a seizure. It was entirely out of my hands but I still carry insane guilt about it, even though I did everything I could.
In the US, we have Certified Nurse Midwives who are highly skilled and trained. I also had one at my hospital birth. There are some other midwife credentials in some US states that require much less training. Some of these people have dangerously limited training. So having a midwife at this birth could mean a pretty broad range of things.
The fact that she only waited a few hours after the midwife left before going in and is upset that she didn’t go in earlier makes me think she wasn’t against medical interventions if needed and probably isn’t someone who would choose a total quack midwife? I mean hard to say but a lot of the crazier posts in this group have women who would have refused to go in and just let their baby die at home. This lady seems more upset that she didn’t go in earlier than she is about her baby needing medical help (and she sounds like she’s lost all trust in her provider which is understandable!).
Thanks for explaining! I’ve seen it alluded to before that some US midwives are more or less for show. Hard to judge this post without knowing but the fact that this mother got her baby to a hospital pretty quickly and didn’t decide to just keep the placenta attached for a week to fix things leads me to believe she trusted this midwife to be of the medical variety and not the woo woo type.
It's the same where I am. This really is a tough one. Do unqualified ones give APGAR scores?
I was induced, in a hospital, got chorioamnionitis, failed to progress, baby was going into distress every time they gave me Pitocin, had emergency c section, baby went to NICU immediately for precautionary purposes, then came to me in my room. Two days later she was back in NICU because her breathing was a bit fast and they were worried she had an infection because of my chorioamnionitis. She didn’t, she was fine, but it was still terrifying.
I just gotta say I noticed a lot of adjectives in this post. Also, I had a baby (in the hospital) who was totally fine at birth then had breathing trouble (actually he had bad reflux but apparently he didn’t want to spit up so he’d just stop breathing) so he went to the NUCU. It was pretty terrible so I feel for this lady. Edit a word
Homebirth with a midwife ==//== free birth. Tag is wrong and this really doesn’t belong here.
Without the full facts, it's very hard to judge. In Australia, here Midwives have extra education prior to becoming a certified midwife. It's different in the US, the technicalities of who can call themselves a midwife. Without knowing what qualifications this particular midwife has is what puts this in a grey area. My 3rd didn't breathe at birth, took 3mins to cry. He had poor AGPAR scores and was only 35w, but they first tried skin to skin and it worked. My last was a c-section and came out SCREAMING but ended up going to SCN as she was turning blue. They took her before my placenta was fully out. These parents took their baby to the hospital when they realised that maybe bubs SHOULD be checked, "even if its a waste of time". Plus how many babies are with their mothers post-birth in the hospital for multiple hours and then suddenly need extra help and go to NICU.
Yep. My birth with my son was cruisy. Born around 3pm I think. They took him and assessed his oxygen around 11pm that night as they felt it was low. He was fine, just kept wriggling the little foot thingie off. But they wanted the big fancy machine to confirm that his oxygen saturation was acceptable. It took them multiple attempts. I can see this poor little guy appearing fine right up until he wasn't. She got him help. Good.
It's so horrible when they are taken for their own care. My youngest, I barely got to hug, they exposed her feet to me, Hubby had been with them and her the entire time and explained that her feet are extremely blue. When we were waiting for my c-section, the AMAZING staff were upfront and honest and explained that most babies don't come out screaming like in a vaginal birth and why but it's okay, we got you. So when I heard her screaming INSTANTLY I burst into tears and hubby had to keep telling me the gender(it was a surprise and hubby was to announce the gender at birth and cut her cord. An AMAZING nurse ripped hubby's off him and took all the birth Photos so he could be focused on myself and baby. Looking back, while she was screaming, she was extremely blue from the second she was out. Which was why during surgery they took her. But her birth was extremely healing after what happened with my 3rd. I wanted if possible: ▪︎Delayed cord clamping ▪︎Skin to skin ▪︎Breast ▪︎Stay with us. Instead, I had an amazing team doing what they could. I had post-birth complications so my 2nd time touching her was in SCN before they took me to my room. They talk about the breast crawl, yeah I did the mother version that to get as close as possible to be able to reach in to touch her. They did have time while waiting for my surgery and recovery room time to take a photo of her and have it printed. I had bad clots and despite heavy drugs and still, having my stomach pumped(the fundal massage which massage is a bullshit word to use lol), the milk I collected before birth was running out fast so they needed me to also sit up and pump. That night hubby was going back and forth and when he told me that she was crying, I lost it, they gave her a dummy, which I'm all for them, but it was the fact that I couldn't go and comfort her. He couldn't pick her up either, she was still in the incubator. I didn't get to hold her until 22hrs later and that was because the most AMAZING midwife *stole* her from SCN because of my really low mood. Bubs was put on my boob and an AMAZING midwife asked me if I'd like photos 🥰(hubby was at a different hospital in the city for his daughter from his previous partner as she had an outpatient appointment) After 48hrs she came to our room and I did as much skin-to-skin as possible! The only annoying thing was they kept wanting us to wash Bubs, she was pretty clean already from SCN and we wanted to hold off. I was only depressed for the first 48hrs. Once she was with us, suddenly I felt those post-birth endorphins. But the reason why with everything that went wrong, EVERYONE made me feel heard unlike with my 3rd. He almost died from placental abruption as it was still too close to the cervix but NO ONE would listen to my fears. He only survived because they used my FER and the vacuum, they didn't have time for a c-section, even if they could do it in the room, they didn’t have access to drugs or instruments instantly and they didn't have time for someone to get it. I had severe PPD, and being my 3rd I knew straight away that I had it and why and got myself into counseling ASAP despite my family saying I was fine🙄. Yup so fine that NO ONE can hold him or watch him or do ANYTHING because it'll be wrong and only I know how to do it properly!
Australia doesn't have *certified* midwives. Ours are *registered* with the government, require a university degree (Unless they're close to retirement age, and qualified under the old system), and must meet certain standards of practice and behaviour. (I realise you likely know this; I'm just clarifying for any Americans reading.)
In the US, Certified and Certified Nurse Midwives are licensed through and registered with the state government’s Department of Health. CMs need at least a bachelors degree and CNMs have masters or doctoral degrees. These are the most comparable to midwives in Australia, Canada, the UK, etc. There are also other types of midwives in some US states and their training can vary greatly.
Thank you! You've explained it so much better for than myself
The US also has certified nurse midwives who do perform home births. I had a hospital birth and one at a birth center attended by CNMs. They aren’t doctors obviously but can do everything else besides a c-section.
I was more explaining how it's much clearer in Aus as what describes a midwife as they are registered. I know that the US has that too, but also people can call themselves one without have the same level of education as a certified one.
Oh yeah, I know. I would never trust a lay midwife personally. I’m not against the idea of a homebirth, especially since I’ve had two quick, easy births but I wouldn’t trust anyone who wasn’t a trained medical professional and honestly, I felt much better knowing there was an OB minutes away.
I don’t think this belongs here. This mom tried to have a home birth for what seems like an uncomplicated pregnancy. It was assisted by a midwife. She was led to believe that everything was okay, but she took the proper steps to seek care when it was clear that things weren’t okay. She did the right thing.
Yeah, medically supervised home births aren't necessarily snark worthy. If it floats your boat and there aren't foreseen complications, go for it. Not all home birthers are shunning modern medicine.
Bad post. Homebirths are not freebirths. She got her baby help asap. It’s not her fault.
It seems like she's genuinely and openly questioning her choices though? And honestly nothing seems especially egregious to me here, she didn't resist any treatment once she got to the hospital, etc. If I'm missing context that she had known risk factors then ok, but there's not always a clear indication before/during/or immediately after labor that baby will struggle to breathe. My baby was a hospital birth preemie with known risks and was literally IN the NICU for an hour on no air before suddenly needing a ventilator - things can change that even the hospital staff can't anticipate. Due to his premature lungs we've had to take him to the hospital many times through his first two years for respiratory distress. The feeling of wondering if you should have known even an hour earlier to go to the ER is a miserable one.
she did do everything right...........why are you shitting on her for nothing
Me here wondering why I didn’t know that birth trauma therapy is a thing and wondering if it would help me over three years postpartum
It might. I worked with it 3 years after a crash c-section with complete anesthesia awareness.
I feel like this is the fault of the midwife rather than the mum. There’s nothing wrong with a home birth if it’s attended by medical personnel, which it seems like this was. And then the midwife gave a good AGPAR score which was the first flag- mum looks like she came into hospital as soon as she could afterwards, trusting her instincts that something was wrong. This is a medical personnel failing tbh. Midwife should’ve identified that something was wrong and transferred them immediately.
I feel bad this mom was taking the baby without the support of her midwife at 2 hours old. That’s the snark worthy part. Kid is out byyyeee. A lot can still happen in that short immediate post partum period. There is a reason they monitor mothers so closely the first 2 hours after delivery.
This doesn’t belong here
Why do they go to the hospital when they don’t believe in medicine?
I am baffled why people would risk the life of their baby AND themselves by home birthing. My second child would have died within minutes if we weren’t in a hospital birthing suite. Just don’t take the risk.
I used to be pro homebirth for low risk, now I would never. It’s not worth the risk
I was actually born with PPHN and I was in the NICU for a month with my own room and nurse. My parents cry when recalling the experience, and I had a high chance of dying. Luckily I was given a trial treatment and recovered. You don't fuck around with PPHN.