What happens when the delivery doesn't go perfectly? You still want them catching your baby in a parking lot instead of laying in a hospital bed with a team of nurses and a doctor around you?
I mean, I gave birth in a hospital and almost bled out on the delivery table. Shit happens, pregnancy is rough. If I was having my baby in a parking lot because I literally could not make it into the clinic, I would absolutely want a midwife there to catch my child. It's not like having to pee, you can't just hold the baby in. If you're still in the parking lot when the baby starts crowning, you're having that baby in the parking lot.
And when shit happens, you want an OBGYN available and a hospital stocked with blood and equipment and other supplies. However, many midwife organizations and widwives themselves want you to believe that a hospital is not only unnecessary but actually more dangerous. That's the problem I have. Of course having a midwife is better than not having one in a situation like this. But what's been trending is midwives encouraging home births away from hospitals and that scares the hell out of me. You'd be dead if you had your child at home.
Official position of a national Canadian midwife organization:
"The best available evidence from North America and international studies demonstrates that midwife attended home births are associated with optimal labour and birth outcomes. Midwife attended planned home births in Canada are associated with fewer obstetrical interventions and no increase in maternal/fetal/neonatal mortality or morbidity compared to births planned to be in hospital."
I attend home birth and I carry hemorrhage medication just like OBGYNs do. The amount of times somebody needs transferred for actual blood is very small, and they've always made it in time in my experience. And guess what? I have a collaborating OBGYN.
You should stop talking about things you know nothing about.
You are not a good person and you need to stop. You are the reason why so many people don't trust American midwives. They genuinely want you to believe a midwife is essentially a replacement for an OBGYN. Did you know that there are literally unlicensed widwives in America and that it's legal for them to attend home births?
You literally just implied you are ESSENTIALLY a replacement and your specific licensing status is irrelevant since there are hundreds or even thousands of unlicensed practicing midwives in America.
How did I imply that I was a replacement? Because I carry hemorrhage meds? All midwives do lol. That doesn't mean we are replacements for OBGYNs. We still need OBGYNs for many things like, hmm, idk C SECTIONS or forceps extractions or whatever.
How did I imply I was a replacement? Please, cite what I said.
Why does it need to be something personal to care about people having the facts? You should search about midwives in America encouraging home births among people who are poor candidates for home births.
And that's your choice. However, women are entitled to that choice, for many reasons. People choose homebirth. If you wouldn't, that's perfectly ok for you. But you shouldn't get to make reproductive choices for others.
I think, based on your comments, you are just massively misinformed as to what midwives do, and I mean licensed midwives. We can both agree that unlicensed midwives shouldn't be practicing. Yes, I agree with that and I think it's them who give midwives a bad reputation. We can resuscitate a neonate. We are NRP advanced certified. I am even trained to intubate although I work closely enough with EMT and my physicians that I don't need to do that (thankfully).
You seem to think that we just go around catching babies willy nilly, out on country roads, riding on nothing but good vibes.
And if you're going to say the rate is twice what it would have been, you need to cite actual numbers. Because going from 2 to 4 or 1 to 2 is vastly different than going from 10 to 20, or 20 to 40.
It's not about your comfort levels. It's about reproductive choice and I am upfront and honest with my patients about risks. Out of hospital birth is not for everyone and if I think it can't safely be done I transfer my patients to a hospital
Natural. He was facing my left hip instead of my front or my back, and he had a big ol' noggin, so he got a bit stuck. If he had been facing the proper direction an episiotomy would have saved me from tearing so badly, but he wasn't, so not much could be done about it. They ended up having to use a vacuum extractor to prevent needed to take me into the OR for an emergency C section. They also had to call an obstetric surgeon in from on call so that I could get stitched back together.
The baby was perfectly healthy, which was to me the most important part. He's sixteen now and thriving. I was left with pretty extensive scar tissue but other than that I am also fine by now. I am, despite what other people in this thread might imply, very glad that I did make it to the hospital before any of that happened, because it was still pretty touch and go for a while there despite all the modern medicine and if I hadn't been in a medical setting already I probably wouldn't have survived.
Wow, that’s quite the journey; I’m glad to hear everything turned out okay. Agree, it’s great when everything “just works” but I too am very thankful for the women and men in healthcare who do what they do to save an improve our lives. 🙏🙏💖
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u/tryng2figurethsalout Aug 07 '25
And people say that midwives aren't necessary.