I Brainwashed Myself with the Internet

Very sad story. As a new parent, I'm devastated every time I read about the loss of a child.

We did a homebirth (with a registered midwife) and it was an amazing experience. We found a midwife who listened to us, went to eight weeks of birth classes, and delivered a healthy baby at 41+6. The birth was an enjoyable experience and felt very natural.

The cost was much less than we would have paid in a hospital and also was agreed on upfront. We did end up having a complication, but since the midwife had medical training she was immediately able to recognize what was going on and transfer us to the hospital.

I guess I'm telling this story because there are ways of having babies in a safe and healthy way not in the hospital - but you have to find the right people and do your research. Our midwife went to an ivy league midwifery school and had a license. If you're like me and thinking about having a baby someday, but you don't want to deliver in a hospital, look into birthing centers and registered midwifes. If you do want to deliver in a hospital - go for it!

Almost trivial to say at this point, but I think this is one of the biggest challenges we face nowadays. Before the Internet, socializing for the most part required some sort of physical presence. This meant that “fringe” beliefs were much more readily counteracted by the more balanced make up of respective peer groups. Now that communication and virtual “gathering” are commonplace, peer groups are often directly chosen by belief.

“Your whole responsibility is to protect your child, and I didn’t before he even had a chance to breathe.”

As a parent, the thought of being in this position, or any position of failing to care for my child, makes me feel sick. This really is a terrible failure. She found the wrong information and perhaps her child died as a direct result.

In British Columbia, Canada, a home birth under these conditions wouldn't be supported or allowed by a midwife. These are people who are typically very pro-homebirth and supported all 3 of my children in home births. I'm disturbed that people were encouraging her to trust herself so far past her due date.

The danger of accepting advice online with matters like this is that generally only an idiot would think they're competent enough to provide adequate advice.

I feel incredibly sad for her and her baby.

While a home-birth can be quite safe i'm astonished to hear about a community that would ignore the need for a midwife. midwifery is probably the second oldest profession and every community and culture around the world has an equivalent. I cannot see any benefit for not having at least this much.

Sad sad story. She had no medical supervision and her baby was stillborn.

Sorry but I have no comments other than it's 100% her fault. Having a baby without the benefit of modern medicine is a choice made out of complete ignorance and she has only herself to blame. I don't care how many Facebook friends or posts directed her to forgo medical care, no one does that without a purposeful decision to be ignorant.

Finally! A website that gives a usable error message:

Error loading shorthand embed: Could not load Shorthand content from remote server.

Please see the javascript developer console for more details.

I will check! In the mean time, I wonder what the article is about.

Update: Ahh, the corporate MITM proxy made this a CORS problem. Thank you, corporate MITM, you waste my time, not only when I try to do work, but also when I take a break to read an article.

I think it is easy to jump on the "I told you so" bandwagon, be it for "freebirths" or anti-vaxers or HAES movements. In the end these movements only lead to suffering. Be it still-born babies, people dying of preventable diseases or an early death because of obesity. I wish there was an easy answer to these problems. I feel strongly about personal freedom, but in the end how can you attack these issues then by information and regulation? The only other option may be the Chinese way of their social credit system. Don't vaccinate? Points deducted. Don't have a birth in a hospital? Points deducted. Obese? Points deducted. That will certainly impossible to implement in the west and also probably hard to reconcile with our culture, but it may come through the backdoor, as insurances are implementing finer and finer pricing factors, such as smoker/non-smoker.