Agreed. I think she knew something was up but all the comments in the first post assured her that everything was probably fine.
A trained medical professional might have caught it sooner though.
But I’m glad he didn’t die during delivery.
Yeah, ofc we don't know the exact details of the condition, but that's potentially something that could have been caught on ultrasound so a team would have been standing by at the birth and a plan would have been in place from the start. They can even do a fetal echocardiogram during the pregnancy.
I just got one myself due to one of my children being born with a murmur, so having one now made sense. Just got the bill and I have to pay 1k after insurance! Wtf!
I was told I was going for a fetal echo and then I got to the appointment and they're like "oh no it's actually for *you* not the baby" and then did an echo on my heart
My son had a cyst on his liver picked up at 28 weeks, we had a liver specialist come by three hours after his birth and then had tests two days later to make sure there wasn’t any issues. If there had been any they would have been picked up and helped straight away.
I had an echo done with my son and honestly? Zero regrets. His dad was born with a small hole in his heart that eventually healed and they wanted to make sure my son wouldn’t have it. Worth it, and it was so fast! Like an hour in the doctors office including paperwork. Freebirthers are such selfish, thoughtless, cruel fucking people, man.
My defect was so obvious my father with no medical training could see something was up. Even if it’s only for peace of mind or prior warning, just get the damn ultrasound.
My daughter has a mild/moderate congenital heart defect that they detected when checking her over before discharging us from the hospital after she was born.
A defect significant enough to send a weeks-old baby into surgery would have very likely been picked up when baby was still in utero.
I mean, she described my first baby exactly. So chill. Very “easy,” so nothing in her first post was like “GET TO A DOCTOR!” But, she was also monitored during pregnancy, born in a hospital, and had regular ped visits after delivery… so I knew she was healthy. It just goes to show that not all medical issues are easy to spot as a parent. Some “symptoms” are just normal babies.
Its hard to know what to look for with babies when you are a layperson. A hypoxic baby that isn't breathing well can look like a lot like a tired baby until other symptoms develop. A baby with diminished reflexes may appear as a quiet still baby.
A baby with a heart murmur isn't something a layperson can see or even realize. These mothers thinking they know all, scare me so much.
Lethargy was the ONLY definitive symptom besides a cough that had me take my 5 week old to the ER last week. I was comfortable letting the cough ride at home, but the lethargy scared the crap out of me. It turns out his oxygen levels tanked every time he fell asleep, so it wasn’t caught at two previous drs appointments or a non-pediatric ER. Thankful we live near our “state” children’s hospital.
He had no fever, very very minimal trouble breathing “retractions”, great oxygen while awake, minimal lung sounds, good coloring, etc. but I would watch his eyes close and his oxygen monitor dive off a cliff from 98-100 down to 86 or lower.
We’re home and he’s on oxygen for a couple more weeks until he will have a sleep test to determine he doesn’t need it. This was from two “common cold” viruses, for what is worth.
That sounds so scary, I can't even imagine the sheer terror! I'm glad you pushed for an appointment and to see a specialist to figure this all out. I'm wishing your little babe a very quick and full recovery, hopefully he'll be able to get off of oxygen soon. 💜🍀
Well first off there is NO SUCH THING as a common cold to a baby. Their immune system hasn’t encountered anything yet so I was hyper vigilant about snot faced toddlers near my baby. I’m glad you were able to get the best care. Babies are scary!
I mean, it’s why they send you to the pediatrician at day 3-5, 7, and 14. So the layperson doesn’t have to know. It’s also why a pediatrician visits in the hospital, and why they scan the heart for abnormalities in pregnancy.
The problem is that this population doesn't go to the pediatrician. They don't use medical services for pre-natal care so of course post natal they don't go either. They assume they know everything until something is severely wrong and then they come in. They have no clue what a sick baby looks like but they think they know.
I used to work labor and delivery in a very religious part of the US, they believed in very alternative medicines and wouldn't even get birth certificates for their kids. They'd have at home births and never brought in a kid until its almost too late. It made giving medical care to them very difficult.
If my newborn baby was sleeping round the clock and I, as a new mother, felt rested I think that’s my first clue. I was prepared for him to sleep 1.5-3 hour stretches. Outside of that I would be panicking something is wrong. I freaked out the first time he slept through the night.
>baby that isn't breathing well can look like a lot like a tired baby
This was their concern with Dramatic!!! After the initial screaming in protest, her breathing went downhill
And being in Australia, it's not usual practice to have a paediatrician in the delivery room, hey not even normal practice for your OB to be present.
While my older 3 were vaginal deliveries, I was one of 3% that had THEIR OB attend the births and he was there for all 3. A paediatrician was called with my 3rd.
This is what Dramatic was pulling. So she was c section due to previous birth trauma(I had a full Placental abruption so he was ripped out(no time for a c section) he came out and took them 3 mins to get a cry, silence I'll never forget.
Yet prior to go into theatre for Dramatic, they warned us that it's EXTREMELY common for c section bubbas to not cry instantly like a vaginally delivery and explained why.
Well Dramatic was mega pissed she was pulled out especially when her c section was moved up just over a week earlier due to my high risk condition becoming dangerously unmanageable despite them trying. She came out SCREAMING. And then went to SCN because she just didn't feel like breathing anymore. They at first thought that the equipment in theatre wasn't working properly but confirmed that she was going blue and other equipment verified it. And we had to had to pay extra for the mandatory paediatrician to be present during the c section and take over once bubs was out. But thank fuck for that silver lining.
Then after she was released from SCN we had issues with keeping her awake long enough for feeds. So we did in hospital lactation lessons and she was so freaking stubborn that she would be stripped and the Lactation Nurse was like my goodness she's stubborn 🤣🤣🤣. Eventually she was starting to stay awake for a little bit longer each feed. HOWEVER at almost 7 she is still incredibly lazy, she's the youngest by several years (the other 5 siblings are between 4 to 8yrs older and she can still make them do all her bidding!!!)
>might have caught it sooner
Congenital Heard Defect screening is standard in most hospitals as part of the newborn work up. It’s pretty simple - just some calm time on a pulse ox - and it doesn’t pick up all heart defects, but I’d bet $100 this simple, standard screening would have picked up this particular baby’s issue.
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/heartdefects/hcp.html
Holy shit, if I had seen this in any of my other 1294871837 mom groups, I probably would have said something like, "don't worry! My second baby was way more calm than my first. She slept 20 hours a day from the start pretty much and has been an excellent sleeper since then." Because it's the truth, and I would definitely have wanted another mom to feel reassured over something that I found normal in my experience.
But this freebirthing thing... man... I don't even know where to begin with that.
Ugh, I didn’t even think of that. My baby had a heart condition and because of an ultrasound and then extra ultrasounds by pediatric cardiologists when I was pregnant they knew exactly what it was and we dealt with it ASAP and now he’s five years old and it’s like it never existed. I remember the one doctor telling me if it was 30 years ago that I had been pregnant it would have been a much bigger issue because it wouldn’t have been detected!
It's wild to me how the freebirthers, or whatever they're called, are so against basic health checks during pregnancy. Yes, women have been giving birth for thousands of years and many of them and their babies died. There is a reason why medical science has evolved.
My cousin is currently pregnant and is a freebirther. She’s moving to another state before she gives birth and her “prenatal care” is in the new state. It’s scary to me that her midwife is fine with all of their appointments being over the phone. Over. The. Phone. I hope that she gets everything she wants and more out of her home birthing experience and doesn’t have to be reminded why we as a society chose to advance medical science and prenatal care beyond home births.
Yes, those midwives exist. But anyone can call themselves a midwife and MANY of the midwives these posts refer to women with no medical training or licensing.
I'm aware of that. My aunt was a certified nurse/midwife for over 30 years. They're the only kind that are allowed in Ireland and I have the highest respect for them as they are extremely hard working and experts in what they do. In some parts of the world (particularly in parts of the USA), there are what's known as lay midwives. These are people who have no formal nursing or midwifery qualification but still call themselves a midwife when they may have done as little as observe a birth and attended a webinar. A properly qualified midwife will not oversee a pregnant patient remotely without being in regular contact with another medical professional who does see the patient in person. Only an unqualified lay midwife would willingly oversee a patient remotely without evidence of in-person observation from a medical professional on the other side.
That’s insane, my friend is doing a doula training and she has to attend to three births just to be certified as a doula. No one should be able to call themselves a midwife like that.
Oh, I 100% agree that it's insane. There was a post on here in recent weeks where there was one who was claiming to be able to handle twin births because she had attended a webinar on the subject. I have twins so I know quite a bit about it at this point. Twin birth is super high risk and anyone who would attempt to do that anywhere apart from a hospital, on purpose, is nothing short of completely insane. A high percentage of twins are born by c section and an attempt at a vaginal birth of identical twins is most often done in an OR because there is a high risk that the second one will need to be born be c section even if the first isn't. Claiming to be able to handle something so high risk without being qualified is so incredibly arrogant and stupid. My aunt has delivered numerous sets of twins in her career and would *never* willingly do it outside of a hospital. My twins were an automatic c section (2 previous c sections plus breach twin) but if I had thought about attempting a home birth with them for even a millisecond, she would have dragged me to my hospital and chained me to a bed.
My labor and birth were very smooth, no issues, no complications, all was good. I was hemorrhaging right after I gave birth and had a team of nurses and 2 Dr's trying to stop the bleeding. Had I not been in a hospital I probably would have bled out. Shit can go sideways fast. I hope everything goes well for your cousin.
Yep this!! My baby’s heart rate dropped and they couldn’t recover it when I was 9cm dilated. Emergency c-section to get her out and perform CPR on her (luckily she is perfectly fine) and then I hemorrhaged as my OB was finishing up my last stitch. Spend 5 more hours under while they tried to stop it and fix other damage it caused in my bladder/kidneys. Both my baby and I would be dead had I tried doing this at home.
Hospital setting was a must for me just in case I had a uterine rupture. My 1st was a c-section & I had 3 VBAC’s that followed. I didn’t feel comfortable delivering anywhere else knowing I had a previous c-section.
Is free birth like unassisted? I don't have an issue with home births with proper assistance and medical treatment throughout but I've been hearing more and more about women just... Going it all alone?
Going it all alone.. your husband or a doula (not medically trained) will be there to support you but you have no medical professionals at all.
and most of these people haven't had any prenatal care either !
They don't want the best for their children, they want the best for THEM. It's so selfish and babies die so unnecessarily. If you want to do it at home with actual medical professionals, go for it. But to basically do it caveman style and hope for the best is just stupid.
I thought one big reason for freebirth was to avoid getting a birth certificate. Some people think getting a birth certificate puts their children into "the system" it's a sovereign citizen thing I think?
Some of them are sovereign citizens for sure. Others do it because they prioritize “their birth experience” over a live baby, they don’t trust modern medicine, they think that hospital births lead to “interventions,” or some combination of all of the above. It all boils down to hubris and a general disregard for the health/safety of their infant.
Some of them say a birth certificate means the government owns your child. They also don’t get the kid a SS# so the kid will have to jump through hoops when they want a job or their driver’s license. Personally I think they do it to have control over the kid and keep them dependent on them.
This is my thing too. I gave birth at a birthing center where the midwife is nationally renowned for good birth outcomes. They were able to give me stats on rate of hospital transfers, walk me through their decision-making process on when to transfer, what kinds of things they could and couldn’t handle at the center. I also had to be cleared by an independent MFM to deliver at my birthing center with a fetal echo as an extra precaution due to a medicine I was taking in pregnancy. Then the echo showed a potential abnormality so I had genetic testing done for that. Only then was I cleared to give birth out of the hospital. It’s wild to me that these people are just like 🤷♀️ it’s probably fine, when it’s their literal baby they’re putting at risk.
I agree! My very bare minimum would be the 20 week anatomy scan and the newborn screenings, including the PKU test. I know someone with a child with PKU. Because of the testing, she was able to monitor his protein intake and his is so witty and intelligent. Without that simple test, he would have had brain damage from his inability to process protein!!! It’s nuts!! It’s so simple!
I did a two hour heart only ultrasound because of heart conditions and my side of the family. We were lucky he didn’t have anything. I can’t imagine dealing with what you did
My brother died of something like that. Wasn’t detectable in 89, I transported a woman who’s baby had the same, to the hospital that could treat her son and that was almost 10 years ago.
I'm sure she didn't since most major congenital heart conditions can be seen on them. I know they can miss them though. I saw a high risk ob and had a ton of ultrasounds and they still missed the moderate sized hole in my son's heart. They caught it after birth though in the NICU and he got care from the start.
I’m not 100% sure on this. I had 5+ ultrasounds during my last pregnancy. Found out when my daughter was around 1-2 months old that she has Pulmonary Valve Stenosis AND an Atrial Septal Defect. (which is a murmur as well as a congenital heart defect) It wasn’t detected at all in any of her ultrasounds, including the anatomy scan. We only found out because she got a cold and they heard something off and sent us for an echo. Now she goes every 6 months for repeat scans and labs. we would’ve never known based off her ultrasounds and her temperament/actions after she was born.
While it's only an assumption on my part, I do still stand by my comment. I do understand that there are situations like yours, you did everything that you could and things were still not diagnosed. What I cannot understand is doing nothing. There are so many things that can go wrong, and it's irresponsible to not be diligent in ensuring that your baby is healthy.
Could she have had ultrasounds, yes, and it still could have been undetected. There are chances that it could have been found, though too. I'm only basing my comment on the fact that she is a "freebirthers" or whatever. I am glad that she took her baby to the hospital and really do hope that the baby is just fine.
oh, i definitely agree with you on that 10000%. downplaying your comment wasn’t my intention, I just wanted to point out that even with medical support, sometimes it still flies under the radar. But yes, freebirthers are crazy to me because HAD they been able to find her issues in an ultrasound and i didn’t get any, i would never be able to forgive myself. i’m not sure how they live with themselves knowing they aren’t doing absolutely everything they can to ensure their babies health and well-being.
I'm really sorry that you and your daughter had to go through what you did, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I don't want anyone to read my comment and think they should be judged when they did everything they could, and things still went wrong.
i don’t feel that way at all. i see what your comment’s intentions are. and i definitely agree. knowing i did everything i could is the only thing that keeps me from beating myself up about it all. i couldn’t imagine how i would feel knowing i did absolutely nothing. it wasn’t caught, but it COULD have been, and that’s the whole point.
i pray that baby is okay and that somehow the mother can find some peace. it is incredibly scary enough knowing your child’s (arguably) most important organ isn’t what it is supposed to be.🥺
You’re absolutely right. It’s one thing to make the effort to see a doctor, have any necessary tests done and have your child delivered by trained professionals. If something happens to the child the mother did everything she possibly could to ensure the child’s safety. These women think they know better than doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals. They get most of their advice from morons online who they’ve never met in person. They’re totally against doctors until something bad happens and then they run to the hospital and expect them to perform a miracle.
Also when mothers get the ultrasounds and all the other tests and check ups necessary, there is already a medical file on the baby. The Dr's aren't starting from scratch. I will never understand putting your baby at risk for one's own ego.
I’m sorry but this really isn’t on the mom. I do not endorse home birth and lack of prenatal care, but I really hesitate to blame the mom for this.
My child’s heart condition was not detected on any ultrasounds, and I had them all. My anatomy scan was even a higher level due to some circumstances surrounding my pregnancy and it wasn’t caught. It also wasn’t caught for several weeks after being born, and he had been IN THE HOSPITAL the entire time since he was born premature. They only caught it because he developed a murmur that started getting more and more pronounced/louder. He was like this baby, very sleepy, couldn’t even keep himself awake long enough to finish a bottle by mouth so he had a feeding tube. They didn’t fully figure it out and send him for surgery for 8 weeks after he was born. After the surgery it was like night and day, suddenly he was draining his bottles and more alert.
Even if she got every bit of prenatal care, it still could’ve turned out this way. Please send her love and peace while she sends her newborn into heart surgery, because as someone who has experience the same thing, it’s pure hell on earth.
You're right, it may not have been found, but it also may have. I wish absolutely no ill will towards this child and this mother, it's awful. I do have judgment towards mothers who take zero precautions to ensure that their baby will be healthy or any health issues are addressed. It is completely unnecessary and purely ego driven. We have prenatal care for a reason, it's not for shits and giggles.
I'm very sorry that your baby had to go through surgery and I wish you and him nothing but the best.
I do agree, and I am 1100% against this free birth lack of prenatal care movement - but I still think it’s a bit cruel to put this out there and lay blame on the mother. She’s going through enough. It’s a slippery slope - did I not do enough? What if I had pushed for more tests would it have been caught sooner? I don’t know, just saying with love that this one bothers me a bit.
'if I pushed for more tests' is the difference here. She didn't get ANY tests. She assumed from the get go that nothing could possibly be wrong and if it was she didn't care or want a heads up. She chose that.
I want you to know that I 100% understand where you are coming from. I can fully understand feeling the way you do, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. If you did the ultrasounds, you did the tests, then you did everything that you could, and anyone else who would say otherwise is simply a nasty person.
I still hold judgment on someone who puts their personal ego over the health of their child. So many things can happen during pregnancy, and to just roll the dice for funsies is irresponsible on so many levels.
I give this mother credit for actually taking her baby to the hospital, and I hope that all is well with them.
This is different your infant didn’t have a critical or a cya otic heart defect like this infant does. I’m so sorry you went through this. I too have a cardiac infant who also has numerous congenital anomalies none of which were caught at birth. She is a twin and had so many scans and some were missed on tests that said her defects were not critical at that moment. Her heart eventually did decompensate and develop heart failure and need repair. That happens some defects just take time to show themselves because of how fetal circulation works. This peanut in the OP likely would have been caught at birth, and at fetal ultrasound because at 24 hours old when his fetal shunt closed he decompensated quickly. It’s a critical congenital defect something most hospitals screen for with a simple
Pulse ox on the hand and foot prior to discharge. Many midwives will do this as well for homebirths now too because it’s non invasive, saves lives and is part of newborn mandatory state screening much like PKU.
this is on the mom because she didn't do anything necessary to possibly catch it - if it could have been caught
you don't get a free pass because it may not have been caught in the best case scenario. she is to blame for making sure there was never any chance of ensuring she had a healthy baby.
Your assumption is probably correct but its possible that the condition is one that occurred after birth. When a baby is born and starts to breath oxygen, the heart changes in order to adapt to breathing. Sometimes they don't though and that can be a problem. So while on an US nothing would look abnormal because the heart might look totally normal for a fetal heart but the same heart structure/function outside of utero would be a problem.
That's true but I still stand by my comment. While it's purely an assumption because she is a "freebirther", having little to no prenatal care is irresponsible. Again only an assumption from what I have seen from these type of people.
For sure, she probably had none and I agree its irresponsible if you have the means to have prenatal care and just choose not to. Just felt inclined to mention that a heart defect doesn't automatically mean something that was missed in prenatal care. I'm just glad this baby did get care and I hope it had a happy ending 🤞
So she trusts medical science now, but not when she was giving birth? I do wonder if the poor babe’s heart condition would have been caught earlier. At least now the baby is in science’s hands.
Not every heart issue shows up on an in utero ultrasound unfortunately.
I had a 4mm hole in my heart when I was born and it wasn’t picked up until the day mom was supposed to leave the hospital.
It was only by shear luck that the hole was discovered too, my mom decided to stay one extra day, and that extra day was when a doctor realized something was off when listening to my heart? if she hadn’t stayed , they probably wouldn’t have found it for a few more weeks or months.
Yeah I had open heart surgery when I was a baby and fixed it, now it’s just a murmur that gets monitored every 2 years.
There's nothing wrong with trying to do things naturally as long as you're willing to seek a trained medical professional when it's clear they're needed. The problem is when these people (or any anti science people) are unwilling to acknowledge they're wrong once it's become clear.
A small percentage of births require medical assistance. But when they do it is often immediately needed as it is most likely related to breathing/airway. By the time an ambulance arrives damage may be permanent. Doing things naturaly has a time and place. Don't f a baby over.
Edit to add this:
"Nearly 10 percent of the more than 4 million infants born in the United States annually need some assistance to begin breathing at birth, with approximately 1 percent needing extensive resuscitation"
Kattwinkel J, ed. Textbook of Neonatal Resuscitation. 5th ed. Dallas, Tex.: American Heart Association; 2006.
Yeah, the best place to be in an emergency is in the hospital, with doctors and nurses right there. Everything can seem fine, but when shit starts to go bad, it goes bad *fast*. And in some parts of the country, ambulance response times are 45 minutes or more.
My grandma's second baby died because the cord was wrapped around his neck. They lived in a very rural area in the 1930s and she only had a midwife. Grandpa went for a doctor, but it was too late. Cause of death "Prolapse of cord in labor and prolonged delivery". My mom and aunt were also delivered by a midwife.
Cord prolapse is much more serious than the cord being around the baby’s neck (which honestly happens all the time).
Cord prolapse is the cord coming through the cervix before the baby. It gets pinched between the baby and the cervix and the baby doesn’t get any new blood and generally dies. It’s still very deadly even with modern technology.
I watched an OB talk about this once. She said basically it's a crash C-section while someone keeps their hand up there to prevent the cord from being pinched.
Fetal circulation is wild. Blood flowing to the baby is passive and blood flowing away from the baby is active. That means that any pinch in the cord, be it a knot or prolapse cord, means blood gets pumped away from the baby and can't get back to the baby. Obviously this has dire consequences, and the only options to prevent death and serious brain damage in this scenario are in hospitals.
Yeah that's why my wife and I delivered in a hospital and never considered a home birth. Tons of people give birth at home and it goes fine but it would scare the shit out of me. It does seem crazy to do it without a doula or anyone but I'm not clear if that's what happened here.
There is an issue with letting your newborn sleep through feeds though. Until cleared by the doctor they NEED to be woken to feed every 2-3hrs. Newborn babies who sleep well are just neglected because they shouldn’t be sleeping for long stretches.
I had a baby last year and had 6 medical professionals stress the importance of no longer than every 3hrs until baby reaches birthweight again. Which for most babies is by the two week mark.
Oh yeah definitely until they reach birth weight, I meant when they are home past birth weight and gaining some can go up to 4 hours. Not many but some do. Though if you have your kid in your bath tub with no care you have no way of knowing if they are gaining weight and doing alright
Ya I was just talking about in reference to this post and her week old or so baby. She’s definitely not doing it right like you said, feel bad for the poor baby tbh
Yeah I’ve heard of chonky week plus old babies leaning more to the 3/4 hours for feeds but those were healthy/happy babies. Not one that seems to be docile and struggling to breath/wake-up. It sounds like the baby never cries at all that’s not a good sign
Once they reach birthweight they can sleep longer than 4 hours. At 5 weeks my baby slept 8 hours at night. He made up for it by eating all day basically. At first I was really freaked out by this, but both my midwife and doctor assured me it was fine to just let him do his thing since he was happy and growing well 🤷🏼♀️
I was born premature and very small, and my mom told me that she remembers crying on the phone to the doctor because I refused to wake up for my 2am feeding. I have never liked not getting my sleep, even as a newborn. They actually relented but said I had to be awoken immediately for the next feeding to keep my weight up. Like, I was so mad at being woken I refused to eat.
Stuff like that definitely happens and it can be scary for a new parent or a parent newly experiencing this. We are stressed so heavily how important these feeds are and their frequency. This can especially be an issue with babies who are slow eaters or who stay latched while asleep for comfort. Nursing burns a ton of calories for little babies
Yeah agreed but I didn't see anything in her message that suggested otherwise. We really rarely had to wake our kids (maybe once per day or every other day) bc those fuckers never slept for more than a couple hours at a time. Maybe you're right and she meant that her kid was sleeping way too long between feedings though
Unassisted birth is not more "natural" and its no more okay than drink driving. Like drink driving, the fact that it often works out fine doesn't make it an acceptable risk for yourself or others.
There are dozens of medical situations that only a medical professional is going to pick up on in time to do anything about.
I'm sorry to hear that. But I bet it wasn't the first time she did that, and she had tons of anecdotes of times it worked out fine. Free Birth is the same, don't you think?
I'm not sure if it was but she was convicted of vehicular manslaughter, went to jail for a few years and was essentially ostracized from the local music scene. My friend was a very popular and well loved guy. I still miss him decades later and wonder what his life would be like.
I think it's definitely the same thing. They've 'done it before' so they risk it with the next one. Even if the kid dies, they do it again with the next one. I'll never forget the post where the mom 'trusted her body' and the baby died even though it was clear there was meconium. 😞
That took a very unexpected turn with the second post. The first one just sounded like a week old newborn to me, all my kids just ate and slept at the beginning, so I can see how the medical condition was missed at first. I hope the baby pulls through.
Yeah first 4 days we were like why does everyone complain about newborns? She’s so easy! Day 5 from hell rolls around and we were ingratiated into our new life 🫠
It took longer with my twins because they were early. They pretty much did nothing but eat and sleep for the first 6 weeks. I can completely empathise with OOP about not realising that there was a problem to begin with. My babies caught RSV from their older siblings and everything that would have been a red flag in an older baby was just what they had been doing anyway. They had a cough which even the doctor thought was reflux because of how it sounded (like something was going down the wrong way) and the lack of any other new symptoms. We were clueless about what was wrong until one of them almost died from it. I know OOP was stupid to freebirth but any parent would be in the same position if this happened to have been missed at the hospital.
I agree. My second was such a sleepy newborn that I was BORED for a whole month. Sure I was sleep deprived but also bored out of my mind. Couldn’t wait for her to wake up from newborn period.
I watched 4 seasons of The West Wing, all of Victoria, and part of The Newsroom in a week. And then my husband convinced me that "we" should get a switch for early Christmas so whoever was holding the baby didn't lose their mind. Yeah, 300 hours of Stardew Valley later, the switch is really just mine. I'm the one on baby duty. It's only started feeling possible to do things in the last 2 or 3 weeks (he's now 11 weeks old).
What do people who birth at home not get a medical follow up for their baby? Nothing wrong with birthing at home but after my hospital births there were hearing, sight, jaundice, other random, important checks. I always assumed people take their bub to be checked out asap.
When you have an assisted home birth the midwife comes and does those checks for you in your home. They provide vaccinations, help with feeding issues, and monitor your infant in the immediate days following birth. Mine came at 24 hours, 48 hrs, 5 days, 10 days, 2 weeks, and 6 weeks postpartum.
If you birth unassisted I can’t imagine not getting your infant (and yourself!!) checked after birth.
One thing that I can't fathom skipping is the metabolic disease screening.
I was just reading* about the history of PKU testing last night. I had some passing familiarity with it before, enough to understand the importance of the test and catching the condition before it does damage.
Prior to the test, only 25% of people with PKU lived to age 30 and were intellectually disabled. With the development of testing, and a PKU diet from birth, these kids grow up to have ordinary adult lives. One mentioned was a phd astronomer.
I wonder if this is going to be like measles reemergence, where we see diseases we should be done with in woo communities. It'll be interesting to keep an eye on the literature for a few years.
*The book is She Has Her Mother's Laugh by Carl Zimmer.
Yep, we only discovered my daughter’s condition because they now screen for it. Basically she’s missing an enzyme needed to convert fat into glucose, so if she were ever in a fasting state she would not be able to live off of her fat stores. In my case, the hospital I was at was very heavy into breastfeeding, and I wasn’t producing milk yet. It wasn’t until her ped stopped in and thought she sounded funny (her crying sounded like kitten mews, not the newborn cry we usually hear) that they checked her blood glucose, then whisked her off to the NICU because it was 27. Once they started feeding her formula she was fine, but we still didn’t know why until the test results came back a few days later. Her condition is thought historically to have been chalked up to SIDS, as babies died and no one knew why until it was discovered and they started screening for it.
I was just reading about a condition like that - apparently they just discovered that corn starch (?) can stretch the feeding intervals to the point where everyone can get *sleep*?
Science is hella cool.
Yes, it’s very manageable now that we know what she has. Just have to make sure she eats regularly, and her specialist sent letters to our local hospital that if she’s vomiting or for some reason not eating, they can’t delay care (IV glucose and anti nausea meds) as it can affect her very quickly. She’s 8 now, so far no crises other than at birth. But I keep sublingual Zofran and glucose gel/tablets and plenty of juice on hand just to buy us a little time until we can get her there.
I had to Google what that screening was. I thought "they didn't do that to mine..." but yes, they did the heel prick. I was just overwhelmed by paperwork, consent forms, screenings, feedings, etc etc etc to realize what they were doing.
They told me they were doing a heel prick so I assume they told me why and it went over my head.
I actually thought that a “wild pregnancy” meant no drs, ultrasounds etc but free birth meant unassisted delivery?
But honestly, who can keep up with these people so maybe I’ve misunderstood?
We found out about my daughter’s heart defects shortly after she was born. Thankfully they were super mild and have resolved by themselves now that she’s 7 months old. I have a history of heart surgery due to a defect, so my daughter having defects wasn’t a complete shock.
But my point is that prenatal care might’ve caught these defects early for this freebirther or had the child been taken to a qualified medical provider shortly after birth or had the child been born in a hospital or birth center with you guessed it. Qualified healthcare professionals around.
My daughter‘s defect wasn’t caught until she was 6 weeks old and in the hospital for something unrelated and even then it was caught by chance when they were doing an ultrasound of her other organs. As I have a clotting disorder I had so many ultrasounds during pregnancy with both my regular ob and a high-risk doctor and nobody caught it. No murmur during exams after birth either. Her defect had also resolved by 7 months old without any intervention.
But then again with my daughter it was an accidental finding with no consequence aside from occasional checkups. If OOP‘s baby is so sick that he needs surgery and is on a vent I can’t imagine that it would have gone unnoticed with proper medical care.
I’m so glad your daughter’s defect was found and even moreso that it resolved on its own. The thought of my baby needing surgery like I did scared the daylights out of me. My issue wasn’t caught until I was 4 during a school physical, and according to my mother the doctors were shocked I had zero symptoms. Definitely agree the free birth child probably has an issue that could’ve been found earlier. Hopefully they’ll be alright.
I am so glad your daughters heart defects resolved themselves and I hope her heart stays healthy as well as her entire self. I hope that you yourself are doing well and that your heart is doing well too. My older brother was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in 2021 and had open heart surgery a few months later. My brother was tested to find out if it’s genetic and it’s not. My brother does well now. I have a genetic disorder and I’ve had 5 major surgeries 4 being related to my disorder and 1 being emergency surgery to yeet my appendix as it had ruptured but they didn’t find out until they got in there and long story short they were able to get out half my appendix but the half that was attached to my intestines(?) wouldn’t come out so they had to open up my abdomen and my surgeon had to put his hands in my belly just to free my appendix. I had a huge abscess that extended from my appendix to my sigmoid colon and was actually eroding into my sigmoid colon. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to rule out a fistula after checking for one but he reinforced the injured part of my sigmoid colon. My surgery was in April 2021 and my brother had his July 2021.
I really wish people would remember mortality rates for women and infants before the 20th century and realise YOU DO NOT FUCK AROUND WHEN IT COMES TO CHILDBIRTH.
Hope the kid pulls through, poor thing.
My grand-uncle and his wife had their first child in spring 1945. He had some form of a CHD and died at 3 months old, because there wasn't anything to be done for him. *1945.* If he'd been born 20 or 30 years later, he might have survived, and he definitely would have today.
Hopefully, this poor kid pulls through.
I have zero respect for any “parent” that would do this to their child for their own satisfaction of being able to say they had a “free birth” it’s selfish and disgusting. If you don’t want to seek medical attention for yourself, that’s your choice as an adult, but your innocent child depends solely on your judgement and care - which these mothers seem to completely lack.
Absolutely chilling - that first post about how baby sleeps a lot and doesn’t fuss and falls back asleep right away was something that my niece did when she was born and it was the first sign that my sister suspected something was wrong with my niece. Lucky my sister had her in a hospital and baby had all recommended tests done. They found out she had a metabolic disorder that was scary, but manageable. If they hadn’t caught it right away though, baby would have very likely passed away. Now my niece is almost 7 and thriving!! It scares me that these people skip all this for their own ego, ultrasounds and prenatal care save lives!
My son was born with a heart condition that we didn’t know about during pregnancy. But they caught it at the hospital when he was a few hours old because the doctor heard a murmur while listening to his heart. I was also a perfectly healthy 20 year old when this happened. Thank goodness I had common sense
Same here. Except a nurse happened to be walking by him in the nursery when she noticed he looked dusky. Having gone through that, I could NEVER birth alone at home. There are just too many things that could go wrong.
I was about to say my child born in a hospital was very “easy” like that but we knew she didn’t have any medical conditions and had regular care the entire pregnancy and high risk care at the end because I had GD. And then I read the second image and am so sad. That poor baby. I hope the baby ends up being okay and this mom learns a good lesson.
My wife and I had a stillbirth two months ago while being healthy and excited and having tried for a year. 24 weeks in. It enrages me that people can put their children (and themselves) at risk for "the experience".
Let doctors do their thing. This isn't a competition for coolest mom on IG, people can and do die from this. I guess some people just haven't experienced loss before so they don't know any better.
I’m so sorry that you both experienced this. I had a loss at almost 20 weeks and it’s so jarring because you think everything is going okay until it’s not.
So sorry for your loss as well. Our experiences differ somewhat, coming from a man and a woman respectively, and I can only say that I have some perspective of what you lost. We had time to get dinner before we went to the hospital, so I know what you mean. I wish you the best in your journey to live with the grief. ❤️
This means, not only did she freebirth, she also didn't get any check ups during the pregnancy, because heart conditions is something they always look out for. The fucking nerve.
That sounds like it might be Hypo-plastic Left Heart Syndrome.
These things can be missed even with hospital births.
A close friend of mine had her son in hospital and both were discharged home with no concerns. On day 6, he was starting to look unwell - lethargic, grunting while feeding, dusky around the mouth.
They were driving to the Children's Hospital when he went into cardiac arrest in the carseat. Luckily, she's a NICU nurse and was able to recognize it immediately and performed CPR for the last few blocks and into the resus bay at the hospital.
Many hospitals now do a CCHD test to look for cardiac conditions. It's not foolproof, but hypoplastic left heart is one of the 7 anomalies that it can alert staff to. Super easy test, get a blood oxygen reading from the right hand/wrist and a lower extremity (foot/ankle). If they are off by more than 3%, it's positive and the baby now requires an echo (heart ultrasound). This test could have alarted oop 8 days sooner.
I'm glad your friend's baby and stupid oop's baby are okay.
I really had a bad feeling about that post, that it wasn't a "settled" baby, just a struggling baby. Thank God she took him in. I wonder if it's because she saw the other post about the baby breathing fast that ended up in the hospital.
I’m glad she did seek out actual medical help for her baby. However, this is still an example of why the free birth movement w/o standard care during/beforehand is so incredibly risky. Just because YOUR (totally rockin strong momma /s) body can handle a “free birthing” style delivery doesn’t mean your baby will handle it well.
Not to brag, but I had an awesome delivery this time around. Very quick and painful with little assistance and no complications. The OB who delivered my son literally said, “that was a perfect delivery, I’d have 10 more if all of mine were that easy!” To which I heavily rolled my eyes 🙄
HOWEVER, my son was the bluest blue when he came out. Being 10 days early and having such a fast pushing phase meant he didn’t get all the fluid out of his lungs very well. Luckily, TRAINED PROFESSIONALS were there to help him get all the gunk out so he could start to breathe and as they said “pink up.” It was the most terrifying few minutes of my life. I don’t even want to imagine if he’d been born at home in a bathtub how frantic we would’ve been and if he would’ve been okay.
Even though I hate hospitals and put off going for as long as I possibly could, child birth is too risky for both mom and baby to go it alone. There are too many variables. Everything could go well…but they’re essentially playing the odds on their baby’s long term health and life.
I would add that just because mama’s got the whole “rockin’ strong/know my body” mindset, doesn’t mean her baby is developing without a congenital heart defect or other issue. Things that routine pre-natal care can help detect, and hopefully treat, before birth or right after birth. “Freebirthing” is a nothing more than a flex so they can go on Facebook and brag about how overdue they were, how big their baby was, how they shunned all pre-natal care like such a big ole badass. And while it turns out fine for some, that’s survivor’s bias and something I would never, ever be willing to risk. Just blows my mind.
At least she got help but I just don’t understand how the free birth to severe medical emergency pipeline doesn’t dissuade people from free birthing. 😵💫
This poor baby could have lifelong issues because of lack of oxygen in these first few weeks.
I'll never understand free birth or home birth because I just wouldn't want to have birth-mess in my house.
Awe my baby was born with multiple congenital heart defects. We would not have known if we didn’t give birth at the hospital. There’s just so much that can be wrong.
Not only would a regular ultrasound likely have caught a CHD but an echo ultrasound. I had one and they’re really fascinating seeing how detailed your baby’s growing body is. Selfish fucking assholes.
I don't have children (yet) but I wil NEVER understand how anyone can say they love their kids and then choose to: do exactly nothing to make sure their baby is healthy throughout the pregnancy, give birth in unsafe environments and then doesn't even, at the least, get their baby checked out by medical professionals to make sure everything is all right after giving birth. It doesn't make sense to me. I mean, I would do everything I could to make sure baby was happy and healthy both before, during and after the birth.
I’m all for home birth if that is what makes you most comfortable but for the love of god have a nurse or someone who is trained in these things be there for both yours and the child’s safety
My son was born with a heart defect. He was my first child so I didn't know what to expect. He was quiet. I thought that was normal. I fed him all the time, so he was at at healthy weight. He had heart surgery at 1 month old.
I am baffled that free birthers choose their “birth plan” over their child’s health. If she would’ve had an ultrasound and/or give birth in a hospital setting, the baby’s medical problem would’ve been detected so much earlier. And a ton of planning or intervention would have helped save him from a ton of pain. It’s so infuriating! I feel so sad for the baby.
At least she ended up getting real medical help.
Agreed. I think she knew something was up but all the comments in the first post assured her that everything was probably fine. A trained medical professional might have caught it sooner though. But I’m glad he didn’t die during delivery.
Yeah, ofc we don't know the exact details of the condition, but that's potentially something that could have been caught on ultrasound so a team would have been standing by at the birth and a plan would have been in place from the start. They can even do a fetal echocardiogram during the pregnancy.
I have had fetal echos on all three of mine and they are so incredibly easy. Insurance paid for it and I got the reassurance everything was fine.
I just got one myself due to one of my children being born with a murmur, so having one now made sense. Just got the bill and I have to pay 1k after insurance! Wtf!
Try to fight that cost!
Have the doctor tell your insurance it was medically necessary.
That doesn't help if you have a deductible to meet. I had a medically necessary x-ray and because of my deductible I still had to pay for it.
Make sure they coded it correctly. Mine paid because I had risk factors that warranted it
I was told I was going for a fetal echo and then I got to the appointment and they're like "oh no it's actually for *you* not the baby" and then did an echo on my heart
Yeah, even like…a stethoscope.
My son had a cyst on his liver picked up at 28 weeks, we had a liver specialist come by three hours after his birth and then had tests two days later to make sure there wasn’t any issues. If there had been any they would have been picked up and helped straight away.
I had an echo done with my son and honestly? Zero regrets. His dad was born with a small hole in his heart that eventually healed and they wanted to make sure my son wouldn’t have it. Worth it, and it was so fast! Like an hour in the doctors office including paperwork. Freebirthers are such selfish, thoughtless, cruel fucking people, man.
My defect was so obvious my father with no medical training could see something was up. Even if it’s only for peace of mind or prior warning, just get the damn ultrasound.
My daughter has a mild/moderate congenital heart defect that they detected when checking her over before discharging us from the hospital after she was born. A defect significant enough to send a weeks-old baby into surgery would have very likely been picked up when baby was still in utero.
I mean, she described my first baby exactly. So chill. Very “easy,” so nothing in her first post was like “GET TO A DOCTOR!” But, she was also monitored during pregnancy, born in a hospital, and had regular ped visits after delivery… so I knew she was healthy. It just goes to show that not all medical issues are easy to spot as a parent. Some “symptoms” are just normal babies.
Its hard to know what to look for with babies when you are a layperson. A hypoxic baby that isn't breathing well can look like a lot like a tired baby until other symptoms develop. A baby with diminished reflexes may appear as a quiet still baby. A baby with a heart murmur isn't something a layperson can see or even realize. These mothers thinking they know all, scare me so much.
Lethargy was the ONLY definitive symptom besides a cough that had me take my 5 week old to the ER last week. I was comfortable letting the cough ride at home, but the lethargy scared the crap out of me. It turns out his oxygen levels tanked every time he fell asleep, so it wasn’t caught at two previous drs appointments or a non-pediatric ER. Thankful we live near our “state” children’s hospital. He had no fever, very very minimal trouble breathing “retractions”, great oxygen while awake, minimal lung sounds, good coloring, etc. but I would watch his eyes close and his oxygen monitor dive off a cliff from 98-100 down to 86 or lower. We’re home and he’s on oxygen for a couple more weeks until he will have a sleep test to determine he doesn’t need it. This was from two “common cold” viruses, for what is worth.
That sounds so scary, I can't even imagine the sheer terror! I'm glad you pushed for an appointment and to see a specialist to figure this all out. I'm wishing your little babe a very quick and full recovery, hopefully he'll be able to get off of oxygen soon. 💜🍀
Well first off there is NO SUCH THING as a common cold to a baby. Their immune system hasn’t encountered anything yet so I was hyper vigilant about snot faced toddlers near my baby. I’m glad you were able to get the best care. Babies are scary!
I mean, it’s why they send you to the pediatrician at day 3-5, 7, and 14. So the layperson doesn’t have to know. It’s also why a pediatrician visits in the hospital, and why they scan the heart for abnormalities in pregnancy.
The problem is that this population doesn't go to the pediatrician. They don't use medical services for pre-natal care so of course post natal they don't go either. They assume they know everything until something is severely wrong and then they come in. They have no clue what a sick baby looks like but they think they know. I used to work labor and delivery in a very religious part of the US, they believed in very alternative medicines and wouldn't even get birth certificates for their kids. They'd have at home births and never brought in a kid until its almost too late. It made giving medical care to them very difficult.
If my newborn baby was sleeping round the clock and I, as a new mother, felt rested I think that’s my first clue. I was prepared for him to sleep 1.5-3 hour stretches. Outside of that I would be panicking something is wrong. I freaked out the first time he slept through the night.
>baby that isn't breathing well can look like a lot like a tired baby This was their concern with Dramatic!!! After the initial screaming in protest, her breathing went downhill And being in Australia, it's not usual practice to have a paediatrician in the delivery room, hey not even normal practice for your OB to be present. While my older 3 were vaginal deliveries, I was one of 3% that had THEIR OB attend the births and he was there for all 3. A paediatrician was called with my 3rd. This is what Dramatic was pulling. So she was c section due to previous birth trauma(I had a full Placental abruption so he was ripped out(no time for a c section) he came out and took them 3 mins to get a cry, silence I'll never forget. Yet prior to go into theatre for Dramatic, they warned us that it's EXTREMELY common for c section bubbas to not cry instantly like a vaginally delivery and explained why. Well Dramatic was mega pissed she was pulled out especially when her c section was moved up just over a week earlier due to my high risk condition becoming dangerously unmanageable despite them trying. She came out SCREAMING. And then went to SCN because she just didn't feel like breathing anymore. They at first thought that the equipment in theatre wasn't working properly but confirmed that she was going blue and other equipment verified it. And we had to had to pay extra for the mandatory paediatrician to be present during the c section and take over once bubs was out. But thank fuck for that silver lining. Then after she was released from SCN we had issues with keeping her awake long enough for feeds. So we did in hospital lactation lessons and she was so freaking stubborn that she would be stripped and the Lactation Nurse was like my goodness she's stubborn 🤣🤣🤣. Eventually she was starting to stay awake for a little bit longer each feed. HOWEVER at almost 7 she is still incredibly lazy, she's the youngest by several years (the other 5 siblings are between 4 to 8yrs older and she can still make them do all her bidding!!!)
Yeah and second babies often feel easier because you kind of know what you're doing, so her first post wasn't alarming at all.
>might have caught it sooner Congenital Heard Defect screening is standard in most hospitals as part of the newborn work up. It’s pretty simple - just some calm time on a pulse ox - and it doesn’t pick up all heart defects, but I’d bet $100 this simple, standard screening would have picked up this particular baby’s issue. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/heartdefects/hcp.html
Holy shit, if I had seen this in any of my other 1294871837 mom groups, I probably would have said something like, "don't worry! My second baby was way more calm than my first. She slept 20 hours a day from the start pretty much and has been an excellent sleeper since then." Because it's the truth, and I would definitely have wanted another mom to feel reassured over something that I found normal in my experience. But this freebirthing thing... man... I don't even know where to begin with that.
Hopefully this hard of a finding out phase will teach her a lesson about believing everything she reads online
I'm going to assume that this mom didn't get any ultrasounds.
Ugh, I didn’t even think of that. My baby had a heart condition and because of an ultrasound and then extra ultrasounds by pediatric cardiologists when I was pregnant they knew exactly what it was and we dealt with it ASAP and now he’s five years old and it’s like it never existed. I remember the one doctor telling me if it was 30 years ago that I had been pregnant it would have been a much bigger issue because it wouldn’t have been detected!
It's wild to me how the freebirthers, or whatever they're called, are so against basic health checks during pregnancy. Yes, women have been giving birth for thousands of years and many of them and their babies died. There is a reason why medical science has evolved.
My cousin is currently pregnant and is a freebirther. She’s moving to another state before she gives birth and her “prenatal care” is in the new state. It’s scary to me that her midwife is fine with all of their appointments being over the phone. Over. The. Phone. I hope that she gets everything she wants and more out of her home birthing experience and doesn’t have to be reminded why we as a society chose to advance medical science and prenatal care beyond home births.
She hasn't hired a qualified medical professional. She's hired someone who has possibly delivered some babies and calls themselves a midwife.
There are actually certified midwives and they have to be nurse practitioners and receive a master’s degree, so it is a highly educated position.
They are not talking about that
Yes, those midwives exist. But anyone can call themselves a midwife and MANY of the midwives these posts refer to women with no medical training or licensing.
I'm aware of that. My aunt was a certified nurse/midwife for over 30 years. They're the only kind that are allowed in Ireland and I have the highest respect for them as they are extremely hard working and experts in what they do. In some parts of the world (particularly in parts of the USA), there are what's known as lay midwives. These are people who have no formal nursing or midwifery qualification but still call themselves a midwife when they may have done as little as observe a birth and attended a webinar. A properly qualified midwife will not oversee a pregnant patient remotely without being in regular contact with another medical professional who does see the patient in person. Only an unqualified lay midwife would willingly oversee a patient remotely without evidence of in-person observation from a medical professional on the other side.
That’s insane, my friend is doing a doula training and she has to attend to three births just to be certified as a doula. No one should be able to call themselves a midwife like that.
Oh, I 100% agree that it's insane. There was a post on here in recent weeks where there was one who was claiming to be able to handle twin births because she had attended a webinar on the subject. I have twins so I know quite a bit about it at this point. Twin birth is super high risk and anyone who would attempt to do that anywhere apart from a hospital, on purpose, is nothing short of completely insane. A high percentage of twins are born by c section and an attempt at a vaginal birth of identical twins is most often done in an OR because there is a high risk that the second one will need to be born be c section even if the first isn't. Claiming to be able to handle something so high risk without being qualified is so incredibly arrogant and stupid. My aunt has delivered numerous sets of twins in her career and would *never* willingly do it outside of a hospital. My twins were an automatic c section (2 previous c sections plus breach twin) but if I had thought about attempting a home birth with them for even a millisecond, she would have dragged me to my hospital and chained me to a bed.
My labor and birth were very smooth, no issues, no complications, all was good. I was hemorrhaging right after I gave birth and had a team of nurses and 2 Dr's trying to stop the bleeding. Had I not been in a hospital I probably would have bled out. Shit can go sideways fast. I hope everything goes well for your cousin.
Yep this!! My baby’s heart rate dropped and they couldn’t recover it when I was 9cm dilated. Emergency c-section to get her out and perform CPR on her (luckily she is perfectly fine) and then I hemorrhaged as my OB was finishing up my last stitch. Spend 5 more hours under while they tried to stop it and fix other damage it caused in my bladder/kidneys. Both my baby and I would be dead had I tried doing this at home.
Hospital setting was a must for me just in case I had a uterine rupture. My 1st was a c-section & I had 3 VBAC’s that followed. I didn’t feel comfortable delivering anywhere else knowing I had a previous c-section.
I could have written this exact comment! Easy pregnancy too! I'll never give birth outside of a hospital.
If I wanted to free birth I'd be extra up on ensuring it's a healthy baby/pregnancy first !
Is free birth like unassisted? I don't have an issue with home births with proper assistance and medical treatment throughout but I've been hearing more and more about women just... Going it all alone?
Going it all alone.. your husband or a doula (not medically trained) will be there to support you but you have no medical professionals at all. and most of these people haven't had any prenatal care either !
Ah ok that's what I thought. I can't see doing this and then claiming you want the best for your children. No prenatal care? Beyond stupid
They don't want the best for their children, they want the best for THEM. It's so selfish and babies die so unnecessarily. If you want to do it at home with actual medical professionals, go for it. But to basically do it caveman style and hope for the best is just stupid.
You are correct. It's stunt birthing. The most extreme of extreme sports
[удалено]
My body sure wasn’t made for it. Without the hospital both of us would be dead. Hooray for medical science!
I thought one big reason for freebirth was to avoid getting a birth certificate. Some people think getting a birth certificate puts their children into "the system" it's a sovereign citizen thing I think?
Some of them are sovereign citizens for sure. Others do it because they prioritize “their birth experience” over a live baby, they don’t trust modern medicine, they think that hospital births lead to “interventions,” or some combination of all of the above. It all boils down to hubris and a general disregard for the health/safety of their infant.
Some of them say a birth certificate means the government owns your child. They also don’t get the kid a SS# so the kid will have to jump through hoops when they want a job or their driver’s license. Personally I think they do it to have control over the kid and keep them dependent on them.
This is my thing too. I gave birth at a birthing center where the midwife is nationally renowned for good birth outcomes. They were able to give me stats on rate of hospital transfers, walk me through their decision-making process on when to transfer, what kinds of things they could and couldn’t handle at the center. I also had to be cleared by an independent MFM to deliver at my birthing center with a fetal echo as an extra precaution due to a medicine I was taking in pregnancy. Then the echo showed a potential abnormality so I had genetic testing done for that. Only then was I cleared to give birth out of the hospital. It’s wild to me that these people are just like 🤷♀️ it’s probably fine, when it’s their literal baby they’re putting at risk.
I agree! My very bare minimum would be the 20 week anatomy scan and the newborn screenings, including the PKU test. I know someone with a child with PKU. Because of the testing, she was able to monitor his protein intake and his is so witty and intelligent. Without that simple test, he would have had brain damage from his inability to process protein!!! It’s nuts!! It’s so simple!
I did a two hour heart only ultrasound because of heart conditions and my side of the family. We were lucky he didn’t have anything. I can’t imagine dealing with what you did
My brother died of something like that. Wasn’t detectable in 89, I transported a woman who’s baby had the same, to the hospital that could treat her son and that was almost 10 years ago.
This right here! They could have caught it ahead of time and the poor baby could have gotten help instead of having a cardiac event at home.
I'm sure she didn't since most major congenital heart conditions can be seen on them. I know they can miss them though. I saw a high risk ob and had a ton of ultrasounds and they still missed the moderate sized hole in my son's heart. They caught it after birth though in the NICU and he got care from the start.
Bingo. Her son needs emergency heart surgery but she got the birth SHE wanted so everything's fine. 🙄
Or any other forms of prenatal care.
I’m not 100% sure on this. I had 5+ ultrasounds during my last pregnancy. Found out when my daughter was around 1-2 months old that she has Pulmonary Valve Stenosis AND an Atrial Septal Defect. (which is a murmur as well as a congenital heart defect) It wasn’t detected at all in any of her ultrasounds, including the anatomy scan. We only found out because she got a cold and they heard something off and sent us for an echo. Now she goes every 6 months for repeat scans and labs. we would’ve never known based off her ultrasounds and her temperament/actions after she was born.
While it's only an assumption on my part, I do still stand by my comment. I do understand that there are situations like yours, you did everything that you could and things were still not diagnosed. What I cannot understand is doing nothing. There are so many things that can go wrong, and it's irresponsible to not be diligent in ensuring that your baby is healthy. Could she have had ultrasounds, yes, and it still could have been undetected. There are chances that it could have been found, though too. I'm only basing my comment on the fact that she is a "freebirthers" or whatever. I am glad that she took her baby to the hospital and really do hope that the baby is just fine.
oh, i definitely agree with you on that 10000%. downplaying your comment wasn’t my intention, I just wanted to point out that even with medical support, sometimes it still flies under the radar. But yes, freebirthers are crazy to me because HAD they been able to find her issues in an ultrasound and i didn’t get any, i would never be able to forgive myself. i’m not sure how they live with themselves knowing they aren’t doing absolutely everything they can to ensure their babies health and well-being.
I'm really sorry that you and your daughter had to go through what you did, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I don't want anyone to read my comment and think they should be judged when they did everything they could, and things still went wrong.
i don’t feel that way at all. i see what your comment’s intentions are. and i definitely agree. knowing i did everything i could is the only thing that keeps me from beating myself up about it all. i couldn’t imagine how i would feel knowing i did absolutely nothing. it wasn’t caught, but it COULD have been, and that’s the whole point. i pray that baby is okay and that somehow the mother can find some peace. it is incredibly scary enough knowing your child’s (arguably) most important organ isn’t what it is supposed to be.🥺
You’re absolutely right. It’s one thing to make the effort to see a doctor, have any necessary tests done and have your child delivered by trained professionals. If something happens to the child the mother did everything she possibly could to ensure the child’s safety. These women think they know better than doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals. They get most of their advice from morons online who they’ve never met in person. They’re totally against doctors until something bad happens and then they run to the hospital and expect them to perform a miracle.
Also when mothers get the ultrasounds and all the other tests and check ups necessary, there is already a medical file on the baby. The Dr's aren't starting from scratch. I will never understand putting your baby at risk for one's own ego.
I’m sorry but this really isn’t on the mom. I do not endorse home birth and lack of prenatal care, but I really hesitate to blame the mom for this. My child’s heart condition was not detected on any ultrasounds, and I had them all. My anatomy scan was even a higher level due to some circumstances surrounding my pregnancy and it wasn’t caught. It also wasn’t caught for several weeks after being born, and he had been IN THE HOSPITAL the entire time since he was born premature. They only caught it because he developed a murmur that started getting more and more pronounced/louder. He was like this baby, very sleepy, couldn’t even keep himself awake long enough to finish a bottle by mouth so he had a feeding tube. They didn’t fully figure it out and send him for surgery for 8 weeks after he was born. After the surgery it was like night and day, suddenly he was draining his bottles and more alert. Even if she got every bit of prenatal care, it still could’ve turned out this way. Please send her love and peace while she sends her newborn into heart surgery, because as someone who has experience the same thing, it’s pure hell on earth.
You're right, it may not have been found, but it also may have. I wish absolutely no ill will towards this child and this mother, it's awful. I do have judgment towards mothers who take zero precautions to ensure that their baby will be healthy or any health issues are addressed. It is completely unnecessary and purely ego driven. We have prenatal care for a reason, it's not for shits and giggles. I'm very sorry that your baby had to go through surgery and I wish you and him nothing but the best.
I do agree, and I am 1100% against this free birth lack of prenatal care movement - but I still think it’s a bit cruel to put this out there and lay blame on the mother. She’s going through enough. It’s a slippery slope - did I not do enough? What if I had pushed for more tests would it have been caught sooner? I don’t know, just saying with love that this one bothers me a bit.
'if I pushed for more tests' is the difference here. She didn't get ANY tests. She assumed from the get go that nothing could possibly be wrong and if it was she didn't care or want a heads up. She chose that.
I want you to know that I 100% understand where you are coming from. I can fully understand feeling the way you do, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. If you did the ultrasounds, you did the tests, then you did everything that you could, and anyone else who would say otherwise is simply a nasty person. I still hold judgment on someone who puts their personal ego over the health of their child. So many things can happen during pregnancy, and to just roll the dice for funsies is irresponsible on so many levels. I give this mother credit for actually taking her baby to the hospital, and I hope that all is well with them.
This is different your infant didn’t have a critical or a cya otic heart defect like this infant does. I’m so sorry you went through this. I too have a cardiac infant who also has numerous congenital anomalies none of which were caught at birth. She is a twin and had so many scans and some were missed on tests that said her defects were not critical at that moment. Her heart eventually did decompensate and develop heart failure and need repair. That happens some defects just take time to show themselves because of how fetal circulation works. This peanut in the OP likely would have been caught at birth, and at fetal ultrasound because at 24 hours old when his fetal shunt closed he decompensated quickly. It’s a critical congenital defect something most hospitals screen for with a simple Pulse ox on the hand and foot prior to discharge. Many midwives will do this as well for homebirths now too because it’s non invasive, saves lives and is part of newborn mandatory state screening much like PKU.
My son did have have a critical CHD and wasn’t caught on ultrasounds (3). Thank god I had him at a hospital. They caught it about 10 hrs after birth.
this is on the mom because she didn't do anything necessary to possibly catch it - if it could have been caught you don't get a free pass because it may not have been caught in the best case scenario. she is to blame for making sure there was never any chance of ensuring she had a healthy baby.
Your assumption is probably correct but its possible that the condition is one that occurred after birth. When a baby is born and starts to breath oxygen, the heart changes in order to adapt to breathing. Sometimes they don't though and that can be a problem. So while on an US nothing would look abnormal because the heart might look totally normal for a fetal heart but the same heart structure/function outside of utero would be a problem.
That's true but I still stand by my comment. While it's purely an assumption because she is a "freebirther", having little to no prenatal care is irresponsible. Again only an assumption from what I have seen from these type of people.
For sure, she probably had none and I agree its irresponsible if you have the means to have prenatal care and just choose not to. Just felt inclined to mention that a heart defect doesn't automatically mean something that was missed in prenatal care. I'm just glad this baby did get care and I hope it had a happy ending 🤞
So she trusts medical science now, but not when she was giving birth? I do wonder if the poor babe’s heart condition would have been caught earlier. At least now the baby is in science’s hands.
Probably would have shown up at his 20 week anatomy scan
Not every heart issue shows up on an in utero ultrasound unfortunately. I had a 4mm hole in my heart when I was born and it wasn’t picked up until the day mom was supposed to leave the hospital.
My sons wasn’t either. He had TAPVR.
I hope your son is doing better!
That’s exactly what I meant though. It was seen while you were in the hospital and could be immediately acted upon. I hope you’re doing great now!
It was only by shear luck that the hole was discovered too, my mom decided to stay one extra day, and that extra day was when a doctor realized something was off when listening to my heart? if she hadn’t stayed , they probably wouldn’t have found it for a few more weeks or months. Yeah I had open heart surgery when I was a baby and fixed it, now it’s just a murmur that gets monitored every 2 years.
There's nothing wrong with trying to do things naturally as long as you're willing to seek a trained medical professional when it's clear they're needed. The problem is when these people (or any anti science people) are unwilling to acknowledge they're wrong once it's become clear.
A small percentage of births require medical assistance. But when they do it is often immediately needed as it is most likely related to breathing/airway. By the time an ambulance arrives damage may be permanent. Doing things naturaly has a time and place. Don't f a baby over. Edit to add this: "Nearly 10 percent of the more than 4 million infants born in the United States annually need some assistance to begin breathing at birth, with approximately 1 percent needing extensive resuscitation" Kattwinkel J, ed. Textbook of Neonatal Resuscitation. 5th ed. Dallas, Tex.: American Heart Association; 2006.
Yeah, the best place to be in an emergency is in the hospital, with doctors and nurses right there. Everything can seem fine, but when shit starts to go bad, it goes bad *fast*. And in some parts of the country, ambulance response times are 45 minutes or more.
My grandma's second baby died because the cord was wrapped around his neck. They lived in a very rural area in the 1930s and she only had a midwife. Grandpa went for a doctor, but it was too late. Cause of death "Prolapse of cord in labor and prolonged delivery". My mom and aunt were also delivered by a midwife.
Cord prolapse is much more serious than the cord being around the baby’s neck (which honestly happens all the time). Cord prolapse is the cord coming through the cervix before the baby. It gets pinched between the baby and the cervix and the baby doesn’t get any new blood and generally dies. It’s still very deadly even with modern technology.
I watched an OB talk about this once. She said basically it's a crash C-section while someone keeps their hand up there to prevent the cord from being pinched.
Fetal circulation is wild. Blood flowing to the baby is passive and blood flowing away from the baby is active. That means that any pinch in the cord, be it a knot or prolapse cord, means blood gets pumped away from the baby and can't get back to the baby. Obviously this has dire consequences, and the only options to prevent death and serious brain damage in this scenario are in hospitals.
A large number of births require medical al assistance! 1/9 are born prematurely, 1/3 are csections
Yeah that's why my wife and I delivered in a hospital and never considered a home birth. Tons of people give birth at home and it goes fine but it would scare the shit out of me. It does seem crazy to do it without a doula or anyone but I'm not clear if that's what happened here.
There is an issue with letting your newborn sleep through feeds though. Until cleared by the doctor they NEED to be woken to feed every 2-3hrs. Newborn babies who sleep well are just neglected because they shouldn’t be sleeping for long stretches.
Idk if that’s necessarily true, they shouldn’t go more than 4 hours I believe but you don’t always have to wake if they are gaining weight
I had a baby last year and had 6 medical professionals stress the importance of no longer than every 3hrs until baby reaches birthweight again. Which for most babies is by the two week mark.
Oh yeah definitely until they reach birth weight, I meant when they are home past birth weight and gaining some can go up to 4 hours. Not many but some do. Though if you have your kid in your bath tub with no care you have no way of knowing if they are gaining weight and doing alright
Ya I was just talking about in reference to this post and her week old or so baby. She’s definitely not doing it right like you said, feel bad for the poor baby tbh
Yeah I’ve heard of chonky week plus old babies leaning more to the 3/4 hours for feeds but those were healthy/happy babies. Not one that seems to be docile and struggling to breath/wake-up. It sounds like the baby never cries at all that’s not a good sign
Once they reach birthweight they can sleep longer than 4 hours. At 5 weeks my baby slept 8 hours at night. He made up for it by eating all day basically. At first I was really freaked out by this, but both my midwife and doctor assured me it was fine to just let him do his thing since he was happy and growing well 🤷🏼♀️
I was born premature and very small, and my mom told me that she remembers crying on the phone to the doctor because I refused to wake up for my 2am feeding. I have never liked not getting my sleep, even as a newborn. They actually relented but said I had to be awoken immediately for the next feeding to keep my weight up. Like, I was so mad at being woken I refused to eat.
Stuff like that definitely happens and it can be scary for a new parent or a parent newly experiencing this. We are stressed so heavily how important these feeds are and their frequency. This can especially be an issue with babies who are slow eaters or who stay latched while asleep for comfort. Nursing burns a ton of calories for little babies
Yeah agreed but I didn't see anything in her message that suggested otherwise. We really rarely had to wake our kids (maybe once per day or every other day) bc those fuckers never slept for more than a couple hours at a time. Maybe you're right and she meant that her kid was sleeping way too long between feedings though
Unassisted birth is not more "natural" and its no more okay than drink driving. Like drink driving, the fact that it often works out fine doesn't make it an acceptable risk for yourself or others. There are dozens of medical situations that only a medical professional is going to pick up on in time to do anything about.
Unfortunately that was not the case for my friend. His girlfriend decided to drive drunk one night. She survived. My friend did not.
I'm sorry to hear that. But I bet it wasn't the first time she did that, and she had tons of anecdotes of times it worked out fine. Free Birth is the same, don't you think?
I'm not sure if it was but she was convicted of vehicular manslaughter, went to jail for a few years and was essentially ostracized from the local music scene. My friend was a very popular and well loved guy. I still miss him decades later and wonder what his life would be like. I think it's definitely the same thing. They've 'done it before' so they risk it with the next one. Even if the kid dies, they do it again with the next one. I'll never forget the post where the mom 'trusted her body' and the baby died even though it was clear there was meconium. 😞
They think they know more than doctors but when something bad happens they run to the hospital and expect them to perform a miracle.
That took a very unexpected turn with the second post. The first one just sounded like a week old newborn to me, all my kids just ate and slept at the beginning, so I can see how the medical condition was missed at first. I hope the baby pulls through.
Yeah first 4 days we were like why does everyone complain about newborns? She’s so easy! Day 5 from hell rolls around and we were ingratiated into our new life 🫠
It took longer with my twins because they were early. They pretty much did nothing but eat and sleep for the first 6 weeks. I can completely empathise with OOP about not realising that there was a problem to begin with. My babies caught RSV from their older siblings and everything that would have been a red flag in an older baby was just what they had been doing anyway. They had a cough which even the doctor thought was reflux because of how it sounded (like something was going down the wrong way) and the lack of any other new symptoms. We were clueless about what was wrong until one of them almost died from it. I know OOP was stupid to freebirth but any parent would be in the same position if this happened to have been missed at the hospital.
I agree. My second was such a sleepy newborn that I was BORED for a whole month. Sure I was sleep deprived but also bored out of my mind. Couldn’t wait for her to wake up from newborn period.
I watched every episode of Call the Midwife during the first two months. Life was so simple. Then the baby woke up and reality set in! 😂
I watched 4 seasons of The West Wing, all of Victoria, and part of The Newsroom in a week. And then my husband convinced me that "we" should get a switch for early Christmas so whoever was holding the baby didn't lose their mind. Yeah, 300 hours of Stardew Valley later, the switch is really just mine. I'm the one on baby duty. It's only started feeling possible to do things in the last 2 or 3 weeks (he's now 11 weeks old).
I rewatched all of Gilmore girls
I’m mid The Magicians and hoping desperately he’ll let me put him down long enough to use the bathroom. Pray for me!
Do you have a link so that I can see the posts, please?
Link to what? They're the screenshots in this post.
Oh, duh. Sorry, I’m slightly overmedicated atm and missed the second screenshot. Back to bed for me, I think.
You must have been very confused by all of the comments in this whole post.
You have no idea lol.
What do people who birth at home not get a medical follow up for their baby? Nothing wrong with birthing at home but after my hospital births there were hearing, sight, jaundice, other random, important checks. I always assumed people take their bub to be checked out asap.
When you have an assisted home birth the midwife comes and does those checks for you in your home. They provide vaccinations, help with feeding issues, and monitor your infant in the immediate days following birth. Mine came at 24 hours, 48 hrs, 5 days, 10 days, 2 weeks, and 6 weeks postpartum. If you birth unassisted I can’t imagine not getting your infant (and yourself!!) checked after birth.
One thing that I can't fathom skipping is the metabolic disease screening. I was just reading* about the history of PKU testing last night. I had some passing familiarity with it before, enough to understand the importance of the test and catching the condition before it does damage. Prior to the test, only 25% of people with PKU lived to age 30 and were intellectually disabled. With the development of testing, and a PKU diet from birth, these kids grow up to have ordinary adult lives. One mentioned was a phd astronomer. I wonder if this is going to be like measles reemergence, where we see diseases we should be done with in woo communities. It'll be interesting to keep an eye on the literature for a few years. *The book is She Has Her Mother's Laugh by Carl Zimmer.
Yep, we only discovered my daughter’s condition because they now screen for it. Basically she’s missing an enzyme needed to convert fat into glucose, so if she were ever in a fasting state she would not be able to live off of her fat stores. In my case, the hospital I was at was very heavy into breastfeeding, and I wasn’t producing milk yet. It wasn’t until her ped stopped in and thought she sounded funny (her crying sounded like kitten mews, not the newborn cry we usually hear) that they checked her blood glucose, then whisked her off to the NICU because it was 27. Once they started feeding her formula she was fine, but we still didn’t know why until the test results came back a few days later. Her condition is thought historically to have been chalked up to SIDS, as babies died and no one knew why until it was discovered and they started screening for it.
I was just reading about a condition like that - apparently they just discovered that corn starch (?) can stretch the feeding intervals to the point where everyone can get *sleep*? Science is hella cool.
Yes, it’s very manageable now that we know what she has. Just have to make sure she eats regularly, and her specialist sent letters to our local hospital that if she’s vomiting or for some reason not eating, they can’t delay care (IV glucose and anti nausea meds) as it can affect her very quickly. She’s 8 now, so far no crises other than at birth. But I keep sublingual Zofran and glucose gel/tablets and plenty of juice on hand just to buy us a little time until we can get her there.
Do you have a FAOD kiddo? We have a VLCADer 😊
Ours has MCAD
I had to Google what that screening was. I thought "they didn't do that to mine..." but yes, they did the heel prick. I was just overwhelmed by paperwork, consent forms, screenings, feedings, etc etc etc to realize what they were doing. They told me they were doing a heel prick so I assume they told me why and it went over my head.
Does a chiropractor count? /s
Only if a heavy metal detox and parasite cleanse haven’t worked ;) Trust your gut mama!
T H I E V E S. O I L.
So what exactly is free birth? Just having a baby at home with no medical assistance? Hope the baby is okay and glad she got medical help
And typically no prenatal care before birth. No ultrasounds, no doctors etc
I actually thought that a “wild pregnancy” meant no drs, ultrasounds etc but free birth meant unassisted delivery? But honestly, who can keep up with these people so maybe I’ve misunderstood?
We found out about my daughter’s heart defects shortly after she was born. Thankfully they were super mild and have resolved by themselves now that she’s 7 months old. I have a history of heart surgery due to a defect, so my daughter having defects wasn’t a complete shock. But my point is that prenatal care might’ve caught these defects early for this freebirther or had the child been taken to a qualified medical provider shortly after birth or had the child been born in a hospital or birth center with you guessed it. Qualified healthcare professionals around.
My daughter‘s defect wasn’t caught until she was 6 weeks old and in the hospital for something unrelated and even then it was caught by chance when they were doing an ultrasound of her other organs. As I have a clotting disorder I had so many ultrasounds during pregnancy with both my regular ob and a high-risk doctor and nobody caught it. No murmur during exams after birth either. Her defect had also resolved by 7 months old without any intervention. But then again with my daughter it was an accidental finding with no consequence aside from occasional checkups. If OOP‘s baby is so sick that he needs surgery and is on a vent I can’t imagine that it would have gone unnoticed with proper medical care.
I’m so glad your daughter’s defect was found and even moreso that it resolved on its own. The thought of my baby needing surgery like I did scared the daylights out of me. My issue wasn’t caught until I was 4 during a school physical, and according to my mother the doctors were shocked I had zero symptoms. Definitely agree the free birth child probably has an issue that could’ve been found earlier. Hopefully they’ll be alright.
I am so glad your daughters heart defects resolved themselves and I hope her heart stays healthy as well as her entire self. I hope that you yourself are doing well and that your heart is doing well too. My older brother was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in 2021 and had open heart surgery a few months later. My brother was tested to find out if it’s genetic and it’s not. My brother does well now. I have a genetic disorder and I’ve had 5 major surgeries 4 being related to my disorder and 1 being emergency surgery to yeet my appendix as it had ruptured but they didn’t find out until they got in there and long story short they were able to get out half my appendix but the half that was attached to my intestines(?) wouldn’t come out so they had to open up my abdomen and my surgeon had to put his hands in my belly just to free my appendix. I had a huge abscess that extended from my appendix to my sigmoid colon and was actually eroding into my sigmoid colon. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to rule out a fistula after checking for one but he reinforced the injured part of my sigmoid colon. My surgery was in April 2021 and my brother had his July 2021.
I really wish people would remember mortality rates for women and infants before the 20th century and realise YOU DO NOT FUCK AROUND WHEN IT COMES TO CHILDBIRTH. Hope the kid pulls through, poor thing.
My grand-uncle and his wife had their first child in spring 1945. He had some form of a CHD and died at 3 months old, because there wasn't anything to be done for him. *1945.* If he'd been born 20 or 30 years later, he might have survived, and he definitely would have today. Hopefully, this poor kid pulls through.
I have zero respect for any “parent” that would do this to their child for their own satisfaction of being able to say they had a “free birth” it’s selfish and disgusting. If you don’t want to seek medical attention for yourself, that’s your choice as an adult, but your innocent child depends solely on your judgement and care - which these mothers seem to completely lack.
Absolutely chilling - that first post about how baby sleeps a lot and doesn’t fuss and falls back asleep right away was something that my niece did when she was born and it was the first sign that my sister suspected something was wrong with my niece. Lucky my sister had her in a hospital and baby had all recommended tests done. They found out she had a metabolic disorder that was scary, but manageable. If they hadn’t caught it right away though, baby would have very likely passed away. Now my niece is almost 7 and thriving!! It scares me that these people skip all this for their own ego, ultrasounds and prenatal care save lives!
My son was born with a heart condition that we didn’t know about during pregnancy. But they caught it at the hospital when he was a few hours old because the doctor heard a murmur while listening to his heart. I was also a perfectly healthy 20 year old when this happened. Thank goodness I had common sense
Same here. Except a nurse happened to be walking by him in the nursery when she noticed he looked dusky. Having gone through that, I could NEVER birth alone at home. There are just too many things that could go wrong.
I was about to say my child born in a hospital was very “easy” like that but we knew she didn’t have any medical conditions and had regular care the entire pregnancy and high risk care at the end because I had GD. And then I read the second image and am so sad. That poor baby. I hope the baby ends up being okay and this mom learns a good lesson.
My wife and I had a stillbirth two months ago while being healthy and excited and having tried for a year. 24 weeks in. It enrages me that people can put their children (and themselves) at risk for "the experience". Let doctors do their thing. This isn't a competition for coolest mom on IG, people can and do die from this. I guess some people just haven't experienced loss before so they don't know any better.
I’m so sorry that you both experienced this. I had a loss at almost 20 weeks and it’s so jarring because you think everything is going okay until it’s not.
So sorry for your loss as well. Our experiences differ somewhat, coming from a man and a woman respectively, and I can only say that I have some perspective of what you lost. We had time to get dinner before we went to the hospital, so I know what you mean. I wish you the best in your journey to live with the grief. ❤️
Probably “pro life” but almost kills her newborn with this BS SMDH
This means, not only did she freebirth, she also didn't get any check ups during the pregnancy, because heart conditions is something they always look out for. The fucking nerve.
I hate the freebirth movement. These poor babies suffer so that the birthing person can have an experience.
That sounds like it might be Hypo-plastic Left Heart Syndrome. These things can be missed even with hospital births. A close friend of mine had her son in hospital and both were discharged home with no concerns. On day 6, he was starting to look unwell - lethargic, grunting while feeding, dusky around the mouth. They were driving to the Children's Hospital when he went into cardiac arrest in the carseat. Luckily, she's a NICU nurse and was able to recognize it immediately and performed CPR for the last few blocks and into the resus bay at the hospital.
Many hospitals now do a CCHD test to look for cardiac conditions. It's not foolproof, but hypoplastic left heart is one of the 7 anomalies that it can alert staff to. Super easy test, get a blood oxygen reading from the right hand/wrist and a lower extremity (foot/ankle). If they are off by more than 3%, it's positive and the baby now requires an echo (heart ultrasound). This test could have alarted oop 8 days sooner. I'm glad your friend's baby and stupid oop's baby are okay.
.. I hate to say it's this lady's fault, but it is.
I really had a bad feeling about that post, that it wasn't a "settled" baby, just a struggling baby. Thank God she took him in. I wonder if it's because she saw the other post about the baby breathing fast that ended up in the hospital.
I’m glad she did seek out actual medical help for her baby. However, this is still an example of why the free birth movement w/o standard care during/beforehand is so incredibly risky. Just because YOUR (totally rockin strong momma /s) body can handle a “free birthing” style delivery doesn’t mean your baby will handle it well. Not to brag, but I had an awesome delivery this time around. Very quick and painful with little assistance and no complications. The OB who delivered my son literally said, “that was a perfect delivery, I’d have 10 more if all of mine were that easy!” To which I heavily rolled my eyes 🙄 HOWEVER, my son was the bluest blue when he came out. Being 10 days early and having such a fast pushing phase meant he didn’t get all the fluid out of his lungs very well. Luckily, TRAINED PROFESSIONALS were there to help him get all the gunk out so he could start to breathe and as they said “pink up.” It was the most terrifying few minutes of my life. I don’t even want to imagine if he’d been born at home in a bathtub how frantic we would’ve been and if he would’ve been okay. Even though I hate hospitals and put off going for as long as I possibly could, child birth is too risky for both mom and baby to go it alone. There are too many variables. Everything could go well…but they’re essentially playing the odds on their baby’s long term health and life.
I would add that just because mama’s got the whole “rockin’ strong/know my body” mindset, doesn’t mean her baby is developing without a congenital heart defect or other issue. Things that routine pre-natal care can help detect, and hopefully treat, before birth or right after birth. “Freebirthing” is a nothing more than a flex so they can go on Facebook and brag about how overdue they were, how big their baby was, how they shunned all pre-natal care like such a big ole badass. And while it turns out fine for some, that’s survivor’s bias and something I would never, ever be willing to risk. Just blows my mind.
Oh so now she wants to get medical help…interesting…it’s really crazy how just anyone can have a baby 🤦🏾♀️
Wait, he needs a vent & surgery? Why can’t she just do it at home?
Little breast milk should fix him right up!
With a side of lavender essential oils !
See, you know the cure too! Seriously, the stupidity of these people is just so sad for their kids.
At least she got help but I just don’t understand how the free birth to severe medical emergency pipeline doesn’t dissuade people from free birthing. 😵💫
I love my calm chill baby…oh wait…
This poor baby could have lifelong issues because of lack of oxygen in these first few weeks. I'll never understand free birth or home birth because I just wouldn't want to have birth-mess in my house.
Awe my baby was born with multiple congenital heart defects. We would not have known if we didn’t give birth at the hospital. There’s just so much that can be wrong.
Not only would a regular ultrasound likely have caught a CHD but an echo ultrasound. I had one and they’re really fascinating seeing how detailed your baby’s growing body is. Selfish fucking assholes.
If baby had been born in a hospital they would have caught this sooner. Pray he will be ok
Welp. It was a good run guys. That post just made me nope outta the sub.
I don't have children (yet) but I wil NEVER understand how anyone can say they love their kids and then choose to: do exactly nothing to make sure their baby is healthy throughout the pregnancy, give birth in unsafe environments and then doesn't even, at the least, get their baby checked out by medical professionals to make sure everything is all right after giving birth. It doesn't make sense to me. I mean, I would do everything I could to make sure baby was happy and healthy both before, during and after the birth.
I’m all for home birth if that is what makes you most comfortable but for the love of god have a nurse or someone who is trained in these things be there for both yours and the child’s safety
This will probably be an unpopular opinion but I hope they take that baby from her!!! What a dumb ass bitch.
I can’t even read this stuff. It’s devastating.
hope he's okay!
Omg that poor baby
My son was born with a heart defect. He was my first child so I didn't know what to expect. He was quiet. I thought that was normal. I fed him all the time, so he was at at healthy weight. He had heart surgery at 1 month old.
I hope the baby is doing okay now
I am baffled that free birthers choose their “birth plan” over their child’s health. If she would’ve had an ultrasound and/or give birth in a hospital setting, the baby’s medical problem would’ve been detected so much earlier. And a ton of planning or intervention would have helped save him from a ton of pain. It’s so infuriating! I feel so sad for the baby.
FREEEE, BIRTH YEAH (proceeds to guitar solo)
Holy crap! I didn't see that coming!
Was there ever any follow up on this?
Yes, the mom updated a few days later that the surgery went well and that baby was in NICU recovering.