Labor Interventions

Midwife Made Mother Feel Like She Was Dying

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According to an article in the Waterford Observer, a midwife was found guilty of misconduct after she pulled so hard on a mother’s umbilical cord that the mother “screamed in agony and feared she would die”.

Click here to read the full article

Sheryl’s comments:
And people think unassisted birth is uncivilized??? This is a classic example of why using a midwife is no guarantee of a natural birth. Even the best intentioned midwives frequently interfere with the natural progression of birth.

Midwives have financial incentive to avoid sending the birthing mother to the services of an obstetrician and they often have to adhere to an arbitrary legal birthing time line so to avoid a hospital transfer for “time reasons” midwives often do all sorts of things to women to “speed things up”. Midwives are also trying to avoid lawsuits and many are admittedly in as much of a rush to go home to their family as any obstetrician.

Some midwives, particularly “medwives” (CNMs who practice in a hospital setting and fancy themselves obstetricians) also engage in the barbaric and insane practice of immediate cord clamping. In a natural birth when the cord is done pulsing and the baby has received their life giving oxygenated blood and the baby has successful transfered to pulmonary oxygenation (lung breathing) and the baby begins breastfeeding and oxytocin floods the mother’s brain (not from a poisonous shot of Pitocin) then the placenta will naturally detach. There is simply no need to yank on the cord!

DO NOT LET YOUR OB-GYN OR MIDWIFE CUT OR CLAMP THE CORD IMMEDIATELY!

Up to 1/3 of your baby’s blood (that belongs inside your baby’s body) is still contained in the placenta. This is the leading cause of infant anemia. This final blood transfusion is a backup plan for delayed breathing or complications and provides critical oxygen before the oxygen from breathed air hits the baby’s brain.

It absolutely infuriates me that these birth attendants are in such a damn rush that they can’t let the baby have its own blood and oxygen. If I am fortunate enough to have another child and unfortunate enough to have another person in attendance, I will knock them out cold before I let them touch the cord.

If you are going to let someone else attend your birth then please:

1. Make him or her sign the birth plan stating that you insist that they do not touch the umbilical cord until it is done pulsing
2. Do not let him/her convince you that they will “give you two minutes”. It takes 10-20 to stop pulsing.
3. Threaten legal action if he/she clamps the cord, even for a cesarean
4. Get a new OB-GYN or midwife if they refuse to let your child keep the oxygen/blood that is rightfully theirs. How on earth can ten minutes of that person’s time be worth blood and oxygen from your baby’s body? Ten lousy minutes when they are making thousands of dollars off of you. Are you willing to risk a lifelong birth injury from oxygen deprivation to your baby’s brain? Your midwife or OB-GYN is certainly willing to risk it unless you stop them.

Or you can make the civilized choice and try unassisted childbirth or homebirth with a midwife who values cord blood, to ensure that no one inflicts this harmful procedure on your innocent and helpless child.

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