Home Birth Advocate Dies Home Death
Via @bengoldacre, a Louise Eccles and Richard Shears story on IOL/New Zealand:
London - A passionate advocate of home births has died after her own home labour.Australian campaigner Caroline Lovell, 36, went into cardiac arrest while giving birth to her second daughter, Zahra, at her home.
She was taken to hospital but died the next day. Her daughter survived.
The tragedy, in Melbourne on January 23, will re-ignite debate about the safety of home births.
NHS statistics show that between 2000 and 2008, home births in the UK soared by 54 percent.
Lovell had made arrangements for a private midwife to assist with the delivery, but unknown complications during the birth caused her heart to stop. By the time paramedics arrived at her home, she was critically ill.
New data suggests home births have risen by 29 per cent in the U.S. triggered by the 'Hollywood influence', better safety measures and lower costs.
Some serious shit can go on while giving birth (see the bottom of the article for a little list). It's 2012, and we aren't living in the jungle in mud huts. Have your baby in a hospital.
Anonymous, in the comments on the IOL piece, sounds like he or she might be a doctor, and regardless, the comment seems right on:
...you want to let a midwife do a hysterectomy on your kitchen table- fine, but you have no right to chose risking an innocent baby. I also doubt a midwife can handle an emergency, sometimes in emergencies you need skills that a midwife does not possess, no matter how well trained she can't clamp a uterine artery, do a caesarian, give a neonate surfactant, give mum a blood transfusion. When I have been called to torrential post partum haemorrhages it is always an absolute life-threatening problem, and a midwife has little in her toolkit apart from giving drugs and applying direct pressure- and even then not at the same time!23 views
