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PiscesBaby Dies in Unassisted Home Birth
Ronda Kaysen: Janet Fraser, a leading advocate of home birth, lost her baby during childbirth at her home in Australia. Her tragedy stands as a stark reminder that forgoing medical care in childbirth is risky business.
Fraser gave birth without a midwife or doctor attending, in what is known as a "free birth." The baby apparently suffered a cardiac arrest shortly after being delivered in a water birth on March 27. An ambulance was called, but paramedics were unable to revive the infant. Police are investigating the death.
Fraser runs the Joyous Birth website, a home birth site that advocates free birth where women give birth in a home setting completely free of any medical support. A staunch critic of medical intervention in birth, she describes caesarian sections and episiotomies as "birthrape" and genital mutilation. The Australian College of Midwives has criticized Fraser for "recklessly" promoting free-birthing on her site.
In a chilling preamble, Fraser spoke with a reporter for the Sunday Age five days before the birth. Already in the early stages of labor, she said that she planned to deliver her baby at home and said she had never seen a doctor during her pregnancy, even though her first baby had been delivered by emergency caesarian.
When asked if she'd alerted a hospital to the fact that she was in labor, she replied: "When you go on a skiing trip, do you call the hospital to say, 'I'm coming down the mountain, can you set aside a spot for me in the emergency room?' I don't think so."
In the days following the baby's death, Joyous Birth posted an announcement of the grim news. But the posting was later removed. Neither Fraser nor her partner has returned reporters calls for comment.
Clearly, this is a tragic story and Fraser paid a heavy toll for her convictions. But her decision to forgo medical care entirely -- even after her labor continued for a week -- is tantamount to reckless endangerment of a child.
In the past century, childbirth has gone from being the single most dangerous event in a woman's life to something routine. We can thank Western medicine for that.
Western medicine has its shortcomings. Medical intervention is too readily used in childbirth and women are often treated with little respect in the hospital. There are some good arguments for home birth, reduced medical intervention being one of them. But reacting to the problem of too much intervention with no medical assistance at all is absurd. Fraser's "free birth" argument, which on the surface appears feminist, is actually the opposite. It doesn't empower women to take control of their own bodies. It sends them and their babies into the dark ages of medical care - where women give birth with no medical care at all and face the very real possibility of death as a consequence.
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Ronda Kaysen is a freelance writer. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, BusinessWeek.com, Architectural Record, Huffington Post, New York Observer and AM New York. She lives in Brooklyn with her family. |
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A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.
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I am ashamed this tragedy is being misused to promote an agenda. Cardiac arrest happens at the hospital with the same results many times. No one uses this information against hospitals. In fact, we are all supposed to pretend the mortality rate is 0. Loss happens and we still do not understand why. Most hospitals do not have NICU’s or full pediatric teams to assist in emergencies during birth. What then? Blame the medical staff that did all they could? What can be said occurred during the delivery that attributed to this? We do not know. If she had been in a hospital, would the outcome be different? We do not know. I have had the misfortune to have patients with this outcome (in the hospital of course). We are trained to handle birthing difficulties. But it is still as the flip of a coin. There is still loss; and one is too many. We are not God. Lets stop trying to make decisions for others; respect their freedom of choice; and and thank God for the mind to make educated decisions.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter.
Great post, props to you for showing the initiative to put it up
I lost my son at 39 weeks during a midwife-assisted hospital birth. It was not my regular midwife whom I had been seeing for prenatal care, but a substitute filling in while she was out of town.
Fetal monitoring showed my baby was in distress. But the midwife refused to call a doctor into the situation and refused to give me pain medications (that I begged for), because of her personal convictions. Hours of sheer torture later, the doctor was called but it was way too late. My beautiful, perfect son was gone.
My story goes to show you that there are irresponsible people in every field, even in positions of authority in the hospital. Yes, I sued her and they settled out of court. All I wanted was for her to lose her midwifery license but that was impossible. She is with another hospital, still delivering babies.
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Pay no attention to what the critics say… Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!