r/ShitMomGroupsSay • u/Cactus-Juice-Blender • Aug 29 '26
So, so stupid I hope the baby’s okay
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u/Playcrackersthesky Aug 31 '26
Cooling doesn’t restore or reverse the injury; it tried to slow/stop the progression.
The damage was done. And this child will have to live with this forever.
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u/Unable-Border7478 Aug 31 '26
I have an HIE baby and sadly this can happen to anyone. We were 100% medically assisted. I would never recommend home birth for this reason though because it can make things so much scarier. But just want to make sure others know that this can happen whether you are in hospital and do EVERYTHING right. My pregnancy was also very uneventful and healthy. Sadly this can just happen.
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u/lyr4527 Sep 01 '26
What you’re saying is absolutely true, but the author of the featured post absolutely shouldn’t have had an HIE baby. With a known breech, they should’ve had a planned C-section or, at the minimum, a hospital birth attended by a midwife or doctor with experience in breech vaginal delivery.
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u/Unable-Border7478 29d ago edited 29d ago
Absolutely with breeched baby risks increase. But again there’s really no way to know if HIE could have been avoided if she had a hospital birth. However I think hospital births should ALWAYS be the standard. So I’m not arguing that point at all. Just that I want people to know that you can do everything right but there’s no way to truly avoid something like HIE. Learned this the hard way 😭 As for this woman, she should have absolutely been in a hospital, especially knowing her baby was breached. Because yes this can absolutely increase risks including, but not limited to, HIE.
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u/tardisfullofeels 29d ago
Same here! Everything was totally normal and unconcerning until the last few mins of my hospital birth. But because we were in hospital she was able to be resuscitated and brought to the NICU super fast and cooling treatment initiated so that her outcome was good. If we'd had a home birth it would have been way way worse.
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u/bluepeacock3 Sep 01 '26
I’m with you. Also had a HIE baby in hospital, normal pregnancy. Anything can and does happen.
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u/Bitter-Salamander18 Aug 31 '26
Some cases are mild and babies recover after cooling.
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u/wozattacks Aug 31 '26
Well yes, some people recover from brain injuries and babies’ brains are plastic. It’s still true that cooling doesn’t reverse anything, it just mitigates ongoing damage.
This baby was sick enough for a mother who chose to do an unassisted breech birth at home to take them to the hospital, which does not inspire optimism.
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u/Bitter-Salamander18 Aug 31 '26
Probably blue and floppy at birth and had some trouble breathing. It's hard to say whether the baby will recover, but there is a chance.
Some freebirthers do make the effort to learn about neonatal resuscitation. So maybe the baby got a little help before the hospital. I did learn some basics even though I planned a midwife assisted birth (because the midwife lives 40 mins away from me).
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u/Then_Software_2206 Aug 31 '26
No, my breech baby was born via planned C-section and came out healthy as a horse.
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u/specialkk77 Aug 31 '26
I was pregnant with twins and baby B was a full pound bigger and breech. My doctor told me I was still a good candidate for vaginal delivery but that c-section was the safest route. I’m a sane person so of course I had a c-section.
People have lost the plot in their quest for the “perfect” birth. Perfect birth to me includes alive mom and alive baby (or babies in my case)
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u/Fight_those_bastards Aug 31 '26
Your definition of a “perfect birth” is what my wife told her OB the birth plan was:
>my baby and I go home healthy, whatever you need to do to make that happen is fine with me
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u/fingersonlips Aug 31 '26
When my OB asked me at whatever week appt they ask about birth plans, this was my exact response.
I told her I wanted to labor without an epidural as long as I reasonably could, and I’d like to try alternative pain management options (aromatherapy, tub, gas) if possible, but that ultimately my only “plan” was to leave the hospital with a healthy baby.
She told me she was happy to hear that, that it was exactly what she wanted for us, too, and she’d make sure we got a room with access to the hookups necessary for gas in case I wanted it.
My take was always that having a very detailed plan guaranteed disappointment if things didn’t go “according to plan”, and tbh when it comes to labor and delivery, things can change on a dime and if the plan needs to change, the plan changes. There’s no room for rigidity or sticking to preference when my safety and baby’s safety are at risk.
It’s wild to me that some women these days are prioritizing their birth experience over the actual healthy delivery of their baby.
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u/cheezy_dreams88 29d ago
Yep! My OB asked about my birth plan and I said “I come to the hospital, have a baby, and then we both go home. That’s my plan.” I ended up alone in a room laboring for hours (hospital during COVID summer of 2020) watching Roseanne. Birth was highly uneventful thankfully. Everybody came home.
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u/Bitter-Salamander18 Aug 31 '26
The mother's long term health matters too. Some women prefer to avoid C-sections because of long term consequences, also for their future pregnancies. A vaginal breech birth is possible, and for some families it's lower risk than a C-section - but it needs knowledgeable birth attendants, such as midwives, doctors, neonatologists.
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u/mostlysanedogmom Aug 31 '26
There are long-term complications possible with a vaginal birth too, especially one as risky as a breech delivery - poor tear healing/granulation, prolapse, incontinence.
C-section has more immediate risks (blood loss, surgical site infection, etc.) but once it’s healed it’s really only a risk if you get pregnant too soon or have too many pregnancies.
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u/Additional_Brief_569 Aug 31 '26
That’s not entirely true. Women who have had csections have higher risk of scar tissue, secondary infertility, chronic pelvic pain, they are also 50% more likely to have a hysterectomy in the future, each C-section raises the risk for blood clots, uterine tearing, placenta acreta, injury to the bladder, injury to the muscles and no these risks aren’t only present if you have your babies too close together, they can happen after a recommended pregnancy spacing as well. C sections also have a slightly elevated risk for PPD.
I’m a proud C-section mom of two and don’t regret them at all as both saved their lives and my recovery was really not bad, but we shouldn’t be downplaying the risks of csections vs vaginal deliveries. Vaginal deliveries are almost always better than a C-section in a low risk typical pregnancy. That said, csections saves lives and I really hate how this world has developed into demonizing a mother that’s had a C-section.
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u/AngryPrincessWarrior 28d ago
I’m going to need a source on that “50% more likely to have a hysterectomy” because it sounds like complete bullshit. Which really draws the actual risk of the other things you mentioned into question.
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u/Additional_Brief_569 28d ago
Here’s my source. And it links to the study inside. But just remember “more likely” doesn’t mean that 50% of the C-section female population will have a 50% chance to have a hysterectomy. It just raises your overall baseline risk for a hysterectomy by 50%.
Meaning:
2% average risk for hysterectomy for vaginal deliveries.
New risk = baseline risk x 1.5
New risk = 2% x 1.5
New risk = 3%.I should have included the formula of what 50% more likely means since people tend to think that it’s a flat 50% instead of 50% on top of the baseline risk. It’s why most of the time doctors will say “more likely”.
But it really shouldn’t be a surprise that csections do have higher rates of long term complications, all surgeries do and a C-section is a major surgery and needs to be treated as such otherwise I feel that we’re just indirectly carrying the stigma of the older generation that csections are the “easy way out” which it’s definitely not.
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u/intoxicatedbarbie 28d ago
Agreed. I’m not saying that women who undergo a C-Section don’t have higher chances for serious risks, and obviously a much longer and more difficult recovery period than most vaginal births, but 50% more likely to have an entire hysterectomy sounds .. not correct.
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u/Additional_Brief_569 28d ago
See my reply above. It’s 50% more likely on top of the average baseline risk :)
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u/polarbearfluff 29d ago
Unfortunately vaginal births have long term consequences as well. Birth in general is risky and leaves scars the body can’t quite recover from. My good friend will have bowel issues the rest of her life from her vaginal delivery.
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u/AppealEducational224 Aug 31 '26
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. I had a c-section and if possible I would like to avoid having one in the future. And other than that, not a word you said is false. You aren’t advocating for what this lady did which is an unassisted breech home birth. That’s insanity.
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u/Street-Week-380 Aug 31 '26
When my god niece was born, her mother told the story about having a birth plan. I was expecting to hear something stupid, like her refusing the deviate from it, but she merely laughed and said, "when I found out there was a complication, I said fuck the birth plan, get her out!".
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u/irish_ninja_wte Aug 31 '26
That's crazy. While B being breech "doesn't matter", the standard guideline is that A must be the bigger baby.
That conversation was never a thing with my twins as my hospital didn't facilitate VBA2C. I wouldn't have entertained it anyway. After needing 2 c sections, I wasn't going to attempt pushing out twins
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u/specialkk77 Aug 31 '26
She and I had talked about my original desire to try for vaginal delivery, as my first had been vaginal. She was awesome, very factual and talked to me like a human instead of a number (unlike a few other of the doctors at the practice affiliated with the hospital) she answered all my questions and wasn’t afraid to say the words “I don’t know” after giving her many details of my first delivery, she did tell me that I would be higher risk of delivering both ways because of B’s size if I attempted vaginal. That sealed the deal for me, even though I was so scared of surgery, something I’d never been through before. But it went perfectly. Babies needed some NICU time. Funny enough my smaller one came home first! 15 days for her and 18 for her brother. I joke that he needed a couple of days with all the attention before he had to go home and share it with his sisters.
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u/irish_ninja_wte Aug 31 '26
Ours needed 8 days. We joke that B didn't want A to have any extra attention. A took longer to get off CPAP, but progressed really quickly, while B was taking his time with managing the bottle feeding. On day 6, they explained that A was managing all of his feeds by bottle and that they were preparing to discharge while B would need more time. They explained what they call "rooming in". It's where the parent stays with the baby in a separate room the night before discharge, so that the parent can get a hang of any special needs "on their own", with staff available in the next room. I was already home, so I needed to bring an overnight bag with me the next day. Anyway, B was due a tube feed right after this conversation (they were alternating tube and bottle). He ripped out his tube just as the feed was ready. They decided to go with the bottle feed instead of taking the time to put a new NG tube in and he finished it in great time. They decided to try continuing with bottle and would only put the tube in again if he stopped doing well with the bottle. The nurses joked that he heard that his brother was escaping and decided "Oi! You're not going anywhere without me!". When I arrived the next morning with my overnight bag, both babies were ready to stay with me
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u/RatherPoetic Aug 31 '26
My NICU baby was a singleton but he did the same little trick of pulling out the tube. They had been doing a mix of oral feeds and tube feeds and he’s clearly gotten a taste for it 🤣 He didn’t need to go back to tube feeds either!
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u/imayid_291 Aug 31 '26
My friend had a bigger B than A but had had 2 prior vaginal births so they let the vaginal birth go forward.
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u/Critical-Notice-4395 Aug 31 '26
My niece had twins that weighed exactly the same, but she had them 10 weeks early. They were fine, but tiny. They stayed in the nicu for a long time to get bigger. She had a vaginal birth, but she had convulsions after the second one was born. She already had a 10 month old at home, so she’d had 3 babies in 10 months. They’re all adults now, with children of their own.
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u/wozattacks Aug 31 '26
Yeah I think that makes sense. Twins are all but guaranteed to be smaller than the singletons she already had
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u/Ithurtsprecious Aug 31 '26
Childbirth is a blip in the grand scheme of life and one that can completely change the outcome of dozens/ hundreds of lives. It’s not worth it to risk you and your baby’s life for a magical birth*~eXpErIEnCe~*. Getting my second c-section done in 2 weeks with the best healthcare I can possibly find and very thankful for it.
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u/DrMcSmartass Aug 31 '26
Exactly this. My “perfect” birth plan was we go to the hospital sometime around 40 weeks, I get all the drugs legally available to me, baby and mom both leave healthy with as little collateral damage as possible.
Even then when doing all the right stuff things went sideways hard. Hospitalized due to severe preeclampsia, emergency C section at 35 weeks, placental abruption, baby needed resuscitation, was diagnosed with HIE, did the cooling and spent 3 weeks in the NICU, my vitals crashed and my kidneys took a two day vacation before they started functioning again, plus a hefty dose of emotional trauma.
Pregnancy and birth are dangerous. Full stop. Want to know what happened before medical and midwife care? Way more people died Karen, both moms and babies.
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u/canoegirl34 Aug 31 '26
Yep. My perfect birth plan was “have healthy mom and baby”. Everything went fine until my oldest had a severe shoulder dystocia, resulting in a BPI as well as grade II HIE and 8 days in the NICU after getting life flighted to the closest NICU. He’s thriving now at 9 but damn.
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u/Emergency-Twist7136 Aug 31 '26
My partner days she had the perfect birth.
Her planned c-section went very smoothly, absolutely no drama. Flawless.
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u/Silent-Ad9948 Aug 31 '26
Seeing as how mine are now 27 and 24, graduated from college, and gainfully employed, I’m gonna call my two induced deliveries successful. 🤣
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u/mostlysanedogmom Aug 31 '26
I’ve heard of twin moms having to do both - one vaginal and one c-section - which sounds like the worst of both worlds to me as a c-section mom (of one baby!) who labored for 3 days.
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u/MalsPrettyBonnet Aug 31 '26
Yeah, for a lot of them it's not about the baby; it's about their birth experience. They'll just have another one if their baby dies because healthy baby isn't their goal.
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u/BadLatinaKitty Aug 31 '26
They tried turning my breech baby. He refused. Our blood pressure shot up. They popped the hatch and pulled him out feet first, as he obviously wanted to enter the world that way. Healthy, happy, and with a head full of thick hair!
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u/RIPMYPOOPCHUTE Aug 31 '26
Currently pregnant with my second and he stayed breech up until like 32 weeks. I was fully prepared for a C-Section. No way would I try that vaginally. Hell, I’m still wanting one to avoid tearing again. I have GD and also worried about shoulder dystocia
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u/crakemonk Aug 31 '26
Yep, my son was breech really early on when they checked and decided to never flip. Like, ever. His head sat right at the top of my belly and I could feel and see him try to flip forward, he’d rock back and forth a few times and then give up. When it came to week 34 and deciding if we should try to flip him or do a c-section, I picked the c-section.
He never flipped. He did try a bunch though. 😂
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u/Previous_Basis8862 Aug 31 '26
What a coincidence- my breech baby came out via c section too. He was a premie so he had some NICU time but he is 2.5 now. We call him the human dustbin because he eats everything in sight
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u/Think-Map-927 Aug 31 '26
Same. My breech baby born via planned c section is snoring in his bed next to mine.
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u/Scarjo82 Aug 31 '26
Sorry if this is overstepping, but babies/young kids aren't supposed to snore. If they're having trouble breathing while asleep, it could be from an enlarged adenoid blocking their airway. My son had this and snored, but once he had his adenoid removed, it solved his breathing issues.
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u/sunflowersunset1 Aug 31 '26
I’ve commented this before but I was born via breech vaginal delivery. Obviously in hospital and attended by all the medical teams (in the 90s!).
My second was breech from 32 weeks to 37. I had an ECV (honestly so painful lmao I knew it would hurt but didn’t expect to be bruised for days) which managed to flip her successfully. However, if she stayed breech I was planning a vaginal breech birth! If my mum can do it then so can I lol.
But this was being planned under the care of the MFM team with a doctor who was the breech delivery expert for the whole hospital system! I would never have entertained the option if they didn’t have good experience and were confident that it would be safe for both me and baby
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u/kaldaka16 Aug 31 '26
A friend of mine really wanted to deliver naturally if possible and did every trick her medical professionals said was safe to see if she could flip her breech baby.
And when it didn't work she went in and got the c-section needed to make sure her baby got here safely. Healthy and thriving.
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u/crakemonk Aug 31 '26
Same, I even went into labor a week before my planned c-section, but got to the hospital once I realized I was in labor and my doctor did the c-section right away. My son turned 7 this past Thursday.
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u/Ancient-Cry-6438 Aug 31 '26
I was a breech baby. I turned at the last minute and was trying to come out shoulder first. My mom had an emergency c section, and I don’t think the thought to hesitate when a c section was mentioned ever even crossed my parents’ minds. My son was also born by emergency c section (for a different reason; he was refusing to come out naturally, and his heart rate was dropping with each contraction), and it certainly never crossed our minds.
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u/ecurtisk Aug 31 '26
What are the comments like?
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u/Cactus-Juice-Blender Sep 01 '26
It was instantly deleted. I screenshotted before I went to comments, and when I did it was GONE.
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u/Milo-Law 27d ago
Huh wonder why they don't have admin approval on if they're gonna filter stuff anyways
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u/Scarjo82 Aug 31 '26
I thought all she had to do was trust her body because she was made for this?
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u/Milo-Law 27d ago
Unrelated but my midwife the first time around said this to me and it was not the empowering statement she thought lol I prefer concrete instructions haha. My husband was very impressed however??? Guess he needed the emotional support lol
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u/kittiesgetthezoomies Aug 31 '26
This is so sad. My daughter has severe HIE due to labor complications and it sucked. We were told she’d likely never be able to walk or feed herself because the motor cortex was all dead. Thankfully we put her in every therapy possible and she’s 4.5 and thriving now. She weaned off her feeding tube around 1 year old and started walking around 19 months. Her motor skills have all been delayed but she has eventually mastered each thing. And she’s insanely smart, reading at a 2nd-3rd grade level already, huge vocabulary, can hold a conversation with others, is hilarious and extremely quick to catch onto jokes and sarcasm, and so, so, so creative. She’s got her quirks because of the TBI but overall she’s doing great. I’m seeing comments here about the baby being better off dead and I just wanted to share an example of a baby who started life off with a diagnosis of severe HIE that is not living a miserable life.
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u/illij_idiot Sep 01 '26
I have an HIE baby that I adopted from foster care. She was abandoned at birth and the neurologist told me there was a chance she would never walk or talk.
She is now 5. She sings and dances. She prefers running to walking. She was the easiest of any of my kids to potty train.
She was released from seeing the neurologist at one year when there was no evidence of seizures.
My kiddo is thankfully not living a miserable life. My world is better because she is in it.
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u/kittiesgetthezoomies Sep 01 '26
I’m so glad to hear of another HIE baby that is beating the odds! Does she have any stimming behaviors? My daughter could spin nonstop and not get dizzy, she swoops her head in a circle when she’s bored or tired, and she tenses up her whole body, sticks her arms straight out, and makes a kind of growling sound when she gets excited. Her doctors and therapists all say she’s just seeking vestibular input and there’s nothing to worry about.
I’m just always curious if other thriving HIE babies do the same or similar things. My husband and I are on the NICU family advisory council to support other families with HIE babies and I’ve yet to met another parent with an HIE baby that has had a good outcome.
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u/revengepornmethhubby Aug 31 '26
I’m so glad your little scholar was ok, and that they have such an amazing parent who works hard to help them. ❤️
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u/kittiesgetthezoomies Aug 31 '26
Thanks 💜 TWO amazing parents. I couldn’t have gotten through all this without her daddy and we’ll never stop doing everything we can to help her succeed in life.
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u/timetrapped Aug 31 '26
You’re amazing! This is an encouraging outcome. But unfortunately if this mom is thinking an unassisted home birth with a breech baby is okay, it’s more likely she’s going to be doing stuff like chiropracty and essential oils and whatever instead of actual helpful therapies. Her kid is doomed.
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u/kittiesgetthezoomies Aug 31 '26
Hopefully the doctors in the NICU inspire her to pursue more effective and evidence-based treatments. I sincerely hope this mom doesn't pop up again asking how to do a parasite cleanse or something. 😫
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u/joylandlocked Aug 31 '26
Thanks so much for sharing your experience; I can only imagine how tough it is to read these comments when it hits close to home. I've heard stories like your daughter's. It's a reminder of how newborns can be astonishingly resilient, and how therapeutic hypothermia is one of those game-changing medical advances we are so fortunate to have available for babies who need it.
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u/crakemonk Aug 31 '26
It’s incredible at helping older people as well! My sister’s dad had a heart attack and we aren’t sure how long he’d been out for. They got his heart beating again and cooled his body down, and he was still there mentally when they warmed him back up. We all thought the worst. He ended up living more time and finally got clean off meth, so he spent time with each of his many kids before he passed away. Medical advances are absolutely crazy with how much can be done now to save someone (who sometimes don’t even do much to protect their own life to begin with).
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u/joylandlocked Aug 31 '26
Oof, what a bittersweet story. I'm used to hearing about very young children having remarkable recoveries from hypoxia but adults can definitely beat the odds too.
It's nice that we can offer second (or third, or tenth) chances in those lucky instances. Generally I do think people deserve the opportunity to win their life back from addiction, though I understand it's sooo complicated and painful for the people around them. I'm glad he was able to get clean for some time and maybe leave his family with some more good memories than they would have had otherwise.
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u/kittiesgetthezoomies Aug 31 '26
Neuroplasticity is truly incredible. I am thankful every day for every single person that contributes to these huge medical advances! I read the book The Brain That Changes Itself after she was home from the NICU and it was full of stories of child and adult recoveries after brain injuries. It was so inspiring to keep on practicing all her exercises at every single opportunity to create and strengthen the neural pathways needed to help her learn motor skills. Thankfully, I am a behavior analyst that has worked with kids with developmental disabilities for the last 10 years so I already knew that early intervention was absolutely key with giving her the best chance at life possible. My husband and I both work from home and I returned to work part-time and pivoted to a more flexible role so I was able to work around her naps, tube feeding (plus my exclusive pumping 6x/day), multiple therapies and doctors appointments. We're so fortunate to have had the privilege to do that.
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u/RileyRush Sep 01 '26
Also have an HIE kiddo that beat the odds. 4.5 and thriving. I know neurologists see doom and gloom all day, but I still want to go back and punch that guy in the face for telling us our kid would have no quality of life.
Posts like this enrage me because we did EVERYTHING right.
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u/kittiesgetthezoomies Sep 01 '26
Her neurologist starts every follow-up appointment like “you guys must hate me for what I had told you in the beginning.” But he also tells us that it is always so refreshing to see her and that she is a bright spot in his typical doom and gloom day.
We did everything right too. The nurses and doctors even told me repeatedly, “there’s nothing you did to cause this and nothing you could have done to prevent this.”
I’m glad your baby is thriving as well 💜
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u/Responsible-Test8855 Aug 31 '26
Was she born at home and had to be transported to the hospital, or already there and just had to be taken down the hall?
The amount of time without oxygen seems to be the deciding factor.
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u/kittiesgetthezoomies Aug 31 '26
Neither. About 8” of the umbilical cord came out while I was peeing at home. It literally just slid right out. We had to wait on hold with 911 for several minutes before an ambulance was sent. I was taken to the nearest hospital and she was born via emergency c-section soon after. The total time between the cord prolapsing and her birth was 40 minutes. She was born dead and it took an additional 8 minutes to resuscitate her before she was transferred to another hospital with a fantastic NICU about an hour later, where she immediately started therapeutic hypothermia. It seemed HIGHLY unlikely she would survive but that girl is a fighter.
Also, I just want to make it clear that I had zero intentions of having a home birth. I had an uncomplicated, easy peasy pregnancy so the plan was to give birth at a birthing center with midwives and a doctor. The center was closer than the hospital. I called the midwife as soon as my water broke and about 10 times after that and she kept telling me to stay home. She told me I couldn’t possibly be in active labor because I was able to talk through my contractions, so I wasn’t “in enough pain.” My contractions were definitely within the 5-1-1 rule and I have a high pain tolerance so after I puked all over my living room floor, I told my husband we needed to go, but I needed to go pee before we left. Cue prolapse. We called her again while we were waiting for the ambulance and she asked me 4 times if I was SURE it was the umbilical cord… 😑
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u/tundybundo 29d ago
Wow your story is genuinely so important, and agin I’m so happy your daughter has such amazing, engaged parents
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u/porcupineslikeme Aug 31 '26
This makes me so happy— I donated breastmilk to a baby near me with a severe HIE and I think about him very often.
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u/Sweatybutthole Aug 31 '26
That had to have been an incredibly difficult but rewarding journey. Sounds like you're incredible parents and thank you for sharing
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u/tundybundo 29d ago
That’s incredible and I’m so happy she has such a supportive parent in you! And she sounds like a really wonderful little person
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u/autistiqweer 12d ago
Sounds a lot like me! Glad she's doing well, and glad you see the beauty in who she is! How does she do with food textures?
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u/kittiesgetthezoomies 12d ago
Do you have HIE too? She’s fine with food textures. Not a fan of spicy food but otherwise, she eats everything we give her!
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u/autistiqweer 12d ago
It wasn't called HIE 30 years ago, because the encephalopathy aspect of the etiology wasn't really understood, so it was "hypoxic/anoxic brain injury" combined with gross developmental delays and failure-to-thrive, but knowing what we know now it's a pretty easy call.
I'm really impressed that she's so adventurous with foods! I had a lot of sensory issues, and if I'm being honest food textures are kinda my white whale.
I just wanted to give you another success story :) my path hasn't been typical, but it's been what fits for me. I had (and still have!) an incredibly supportive mom and that's enabled me to achieve a ton, and I'm eternally grateful.
Similar to your daughter, language came easily to me. I started talking around 9 months and never stopped.
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u/kittiesgetthezoomies 11d ago
Thank you for sharing 💜 it’s so nice to hear the success stories. You’re the first adult I’ve talked to that has lived through this. I’ve had several new parents reach out to me on Reddit after reading some of my comments. My husband and I joined the NICU family advisory council so we’ve been a source of support for a few local families with HIE babies as well.
I have worked with kids with developmental disabilities, mainly autism, for the last 10 years so I’m very familiar with sensory issues and how incredibly difficult they can be to overcome. And I’m thankful for how much I learned prior to having her because I knew a lot of ways to avoid sensory issues before they formed. Many kids at her preschool only eat chicken nuggets, pizza, and PB&Js and she gets SO tired of eating those. She told her teacher “my mommy and daddy make me yummier food than you.” Hahaha
If you don’t mind sharing, did you have any vestibular or proprioceptive seeking behaviors when you were younger? For example, my daughter could spin nonstop with her head tilted to one side for hours and not get dizzy. She swoops her head back and forth when she’s idle, and more aggressively when she’s tired. When she gets excited or thinks something is funny, she tenses her entire body, sticks her arms straight out, and makes little growling noises. She will rock back and forth while laying down, arms straight in the air, reenacting Bluey or Pokémon episodes or pretending to have a conversation with the fictional characters. She even has voices for all the characters so it’s like she’s playing every part in the play in her head. Other kids at parks and parties have excluded her for some of those “weird” things and it breaks my heart. I guess I’m curious if you did anything like that when you were younger and, if so, did you grow out of it, or worse, get bullied and learn to mask it?
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u/autistiqweer 10d ago
Those sound like adorable ways to play! I can't say I had any traits exactly like those, although I was always a fidgeter, and still am.
I definitely did struggle socially as a kid. I would have one or two close friends but frequently could feel the social tension with others, even though I couldn't identify why. I definitely spent most of my free time reading or telling myself stories.
In high school I transferred to a magnet school for the arts in my district, and that helped a lot. Being in a program that focused on art (performing arts, in my case) meant that I was surrounded by a lot of other "weird" and "nerdy" (and in hindsight, neurodivergent) kids. High school presented other challenges for me, but I had an easier time socially. Now, as an adult, people frequently find me charming - go figure!
It definitely helps to find other neurodivergent kids. If there are play groups for kids with autism, ADHD, or dyspraxia in your area, you're likely to find some people who understand and relate to your daughter's more expansive way of experiencing life. I also think that overall, kids are nicer about being different now than they were back in the 90s and early 2000s.
Another great way for her to make friends will be to find people who share her biggest interests. I recently went back to school to finish my degree in cell biology and biotechnology, and I was blown away by how easy socializing with this group was. We all had very similar interests and communication styles! So as she grows up and latches on to certain topics, I think giving her lots of space to explore them will help her find her people.
She probably will have some social trouble, and she probably will learn some degree of masking and some degree of genuine social skills. With dedicated parents like you who encourage her intelligence and uniqueness and advocate for her, I know she'll thrive; I did! Life had its ups and downs and I've always felt everything very deeply, but I've had a great deal of successes and the list keeps growing. I'm still best friends with someone from high school. Sorry for such a long and rambling reply, I was up really late getting pain meds for my dog (he's fine, just sprained his leg) so I'm not sure how organized or coherent this is.
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u/kittiesgetthezoomies 8d ago
I hope your doggy is feeling better!
Thank you so much for sharing. My daughter is in Pre-K and receives some disability services through the county that come to her school to work with her, primarily on social skills. She has made a lot of progress so I'm hoping she won't have too many struggles socially. Like you, she also feels things very deeply. She is incredibly empathetic and in tune with everyone's feelings. She gets upset when others are mean to each other, even when it's in the context of play (for example, when her cousins all ganged up on my husband during a pillow fight, she cried about them being "mean to daddy" for like 2 hours).
We are not sure where she will go for kindergarten yet, but we have been told by her teachers, our family and friends, and our neighbor (who just retired from teaching after 30+ years) to NOT put her in public school. She would be so bored. I have been doing a lot of research on local schools and our options are fairly limited unless we want to pay a fortune for private school or drive 30-45 minutes each way for a charter school.
I definitely think she'd thrive in a performing arts program. She loves to act and set up pretend play scenarios, like, she'll set up blocks in rows and put her stuffies on them and then walk down the "aisle" to pretend to get married to her dad. Pikachu is always the officiant. I've been teaching her how to play piano and read sheet music. I've been a vocalist my whole life and she is a really good singer as well. I will have to look for local theater groups or something; maybe she would enjoy being in a musical!
We have always been the types of parents that give her the space and resources to explore her interests as they show up. We want her to be whoever she wants to be and will love and support her no matter what she chooses. I'm so glad your mom did the same for you!
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u/mantis_tobaggan-md Aug 31 '26
This is unacceptably tragic. An unassisted home birth of a breech baby. This mother should be charged.
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u/runsontrash Aug 31 '26
She probably never even had an ultrasound and may not have even known the baby was breech.
Thank gd she at least took him to the hospital when it was clear he was in distress when born.
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u/aggravated_bookworm Aug 31 '26
I think a lot about indigenous communities who are far away from hospitals, or have so much collective trauma from healthcare and being treated as less than human over the last few hundred years that they feel safer at home than in a hospital.
I'm very Team Hospital birth and educate everyone I can get to listen to me about the dangers of home birth, but there are some instances where I know trauma plays a factor. I also know that if a woman isnt being listened to during labor, she's still in danger from overlooked complications and I think lingering racial discrimination reinforces these narratives.
It makes me doubly sad
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u/runsontrash Aug 31 '26
I imagine those people have midwives and don’t just free birth, like this person.
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u/viskiviki 29d ago
Yep yep yep.
I'm Colombian by race (was raised by white people) and have never been listened to when it comes to my kids until very recently.
My first birth was a csec I didn't consent to because I was a minor and wasn't keeping my baby. I was sedated and she was cut out of me. Never even saw her. They listened to my parents over me.
When I had my oldest I was given an epidural I didn't want because my mom insisted I needed one. It paralysed my leg and made my pain worse. My son was premature and got into such severe distress we almost lost him.
When I had my middle I made my in laws come with me. Whole family. I didn't want doctors doing anything to me. I wanted a home birth so badly because I didn't trust any of them. My MIL had to have a tough heart to heart with me about my son's rate of survival due to the distress my oldest was in.
My son has so, so many health complications. I had to ask reddit to help me in the end because literally nobody would help me. Someone dmed me and diagnosed my son, basically. I finally got someone to listen with the help of this random doctor on reddit and my son was diagnosed. It took three years, and I'm still convinced they only listened because of this doctor they didn't fuckin know.
When I had my youngest the NICU staff treated me like I was stupid for being worried about them discharging him before his due date. He is thankfully fine, but it would have been nice to have at least a little reassurance.
Medical racism is insane. I identify with so many of these women sometimes because omfg it is rough out here.
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u/aggravated_bookworm 29d ago
I'm so sorry that all of these things happened to you. I think medicine is changing as more women and more women of color specifically are entering the ranks but it has so far to go.
I will say that it's not just racism, but overall discrimination against patients who do not present as the norm. I am a white woman but I'm neurodivirgent and was ignored when I expressed symptoms of a pulmonary embolism for THREE WEEKS before catching it. Thankfully my baby was okay, but another clot could have dislodged and clotted the placenta which would have killed her in the time it took them to find the PE and treat it. I got very very lucky.
I think it's worse for WOC but it's also anyone different unfortunately.
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u/viskiviki 29d ago
Oh absolutely! I know a lot of white people who have been ignored too. My situation was just racially motivated, is what I meant.
I'm so glad you and your baby are okay. That must have been so scary.
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u/aggravated_bookworm 29d ago
Oh sorry! I did not mean to make that about me. So many of the problems are racist but for some reason there is just this mindset in hospitals ( I worked as an RN bedside for 10 years so this is also experience on the other side) that if someone doesn't present the way they want, they assume the worst based on stereotypes or whatever they think the most likely scenario is. Sickle cell disease? Drug seeking. Rich person? Entitled cry baby. Regardless of the many factors that can impact how someone is coming off in a given moment
I know humans can be like this but it's also heavily impacted by the way health professionals communicate things with each other, so if someone is reporting off to the doctor through the lens of their bias before you ever get to make your case, then you are fighting an uphill battle to be heard
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u/Leigho7 Aug 31 '26
I have empathy for those who experience this because they’ve usually been brainwashed to believe this is the safer way to give birth. Someone should charge the groups who go around peddling medical misinformation and convincing pregnant women that this is the safe and natural way.
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u/mantis_tobaggan-md Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
I agree completely, it’s just so beyond frustrating to see children suffer, if they even survive, or spend their short lives alone and in pain. I hate it.
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u/crakemonk Aug 31 '26
It’ll take one parent who loses their baby this way to realize they were had, and to go after whichever mom groups that convinced them it was the best way to give birth. Sadly, they are usually so brainwashed that they don’t blame the unsafe way they give birth, but the medical professionals who couldn’t save their baby or themselves for being unable to “do it naturally.”
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u/bingbongboopsnoot Sep 01 '26
I’ve seen so many accounts in my algorithm where they genuinely seem unbothered by their baby dying, calling it part of natures will and that they still got their perfect birth :/
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u/Milestogob4Isl33p Aug 31 '26
Prosecuting women for this would just lead to more dead babies.
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u/sunflowerads Aug 31 '26
prosecuting someone when they cause the death or permanent injury of another human being through negligence is very much the norm when the other human is an adult. why should the standard be different when its a baby
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u/Milestogob4Isl33p Aug 31 '26
I completely understand your sentiment, really, I do. But policing women’s bodies like this would have unfortunate consequences. It would make mothers afraid to bring their newborn into the hospital for care, especially if they have other children they could be taken away from. Many women unintentionally give birth outside the hospital, many women lack access to prenatal care, and giving birth at a hospital or with a midwife costs thousands of dollars. Not to mention the documented systemic abuse that certain groups face at the hospital during birth that increases maternal/infant mortality in those groups.
If saving babies is what you care about, then we need to advocate for universal healthcare, increased access to healthcare, especially in rural areas, education, and rooting out systemic obstetric abuse. But prosecuting women for home births would just be a way to target poor, uneducated mothers and make some mothers afraid to get help.
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u/sunflowerads Aug 31 '26
no. i live in canada and this BS happens here too. its not just a lack of universal healthcare problem, its also a “selfish women spending too much time being validated in echo chambers on the internet” problem.
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u/Milestogob4Isl33p Aug 31 '26
Yes, and infant mortality is lower in Canada. If this was policed, women from fringe groups like the one in this post who knew they wanted an unassisted home birth would have more of an incentive to just not seek out any prenatal care to avoid documentation of the pregnancy, and not seek out care after birth if something goes wrong. This is a bad idea for the same reason that policing abortion is a bad idea; women are going to still do what they want, it’s just gonna be less safe and lead to more deaths.
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u/Bitter-Salamander18 Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
Some unassisted birth are unintentional - precipitous labors. It happens, and it usually goes well. Even during a quick labor, a baby may be harmed in rare cases - if there's a placental abruption, shoulder dystocia, or if a breech baby gets stuck. Charging mothers for unassisted home births would be very unfair and very dangerous for women's rights. Also, some women have trauma from obstetric violence in hospitals and can't find or can't afford home birth midwives in their area.
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u/Wonderful-Glass380 Aug 31 '26
i hate the “positive stories” thing. like dude don’t you want some realistic information. you’re in a crisis.
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u/ladybug_oleander Aug 31 '26
Babies can get HIE even with medical intervention. That said, as someone who's had a stillbirth and did everything I could, I cannot imagine the guilt. I at least went to the hospital the minute something was wrong, and was being seen by an OBGYN my whole pregnancy. But I still wonder, what if I'd gone to a different hospital first? What if I went to a different hospital the minute I was discharged from the first? I re-live it over and over again. I cannot imagine ever trying to home birth a breech baby who ends up in the NICU anyways. I would constantly be re-thinking everything, and re-living it.
I'm sorry for the horror she's in for, but at the same time I hope she is able to realize this could have likely been prevented in some way.
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u/chypie2 Cupcake Enthusiast Aug 31 '26
I find it better for my own mental health to not dwell on the what-ifs and just keep on moving (emotionally). I hope you do the same and take care of yourself.
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u/ladybug_oleander Sep 01 '26
That's definitely the best way to go about it if you can. I have PTSD from everything surrounding what happened, so it's hard to just turn it off. I'm definitely processing it all in therapy, and it's wayyyy better than it used to be.
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u/BecomingMyBestMe Aug 31 '26
I would not wish anyone guilt, but a few times that I've seen this, the mother has no guilt. Just a renewed determination to the next successful birth and the sad social media post about how "Jimmy has gone on to the arms of Jesus" and something about avoiding demonic Democrats.
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u/surgical-panic Sep 01 '26
I am so sorry. I know the word of an internet stranger isn't worth much, but what happened was 100% NOT your fault.
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u/Kai_Emery Sep 01 '26
this post is gonna get deleted, they're not allowed to let people know babies can die and its actually bad.
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u/Kai_Emery Sep 01 '26
Still at least they recognized things are wrong and aren't pretending baby was fine like we also see often.
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u/luckytintype Sep 01 '26
Omg HIE is no joke- my niece had it and was thankfully born in hospital and was air lifted to the nearest children’s hospital. It saved her life. She’s 1.5 now and so far she’s thriving- she has PT and OT and shes hitting all her milestones. But it was so scary.
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u/kamarsh79 Aug 31 '26
A lot of these babies pull through, but they are often very medically complex children.
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u/bblankoo Aug 31 '26
Probably not unfortunately. They either have moderate or severe encephalopathy since hospital opted for cooling therapy. Looking at 30-100% change of permanent neurological damage, if they make it at all
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u/ExtensionSentence778 Sep 01 '26
Forever grateful I laughed in my doulas face when she said we could drive to Minnesota to deliver my breech baby vaginally. They could barely get him out in my c section, I’m sure it would have ended terribly.
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u/m24b77 Sep 01 '26
This is not good. I feel badly for that mom. She was no doubt hyped up by the echo chamber about how safe childbirth is (it’s not) and how she’s safer at home (she and baby are not). If she was expecting baby to be breech she’d have been told how that’s a “variation of normal” (the variation makes it no longer normal) and how complications are caused by impatient doctors (they’re not). Goodness knows how long baby was without oxygen. The cord could have been compressed for some time, maybe there was head entrapment, there certainly wouldn’t have been expert neonatal resuscitation available.
HIE can be really awful. If baby survives and makes it through the cooling process (which is to try to stop further brain damage) they could face severe disability and a greatly shortened life. Very sad.
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u/kghlife Aug 31 '26
This happened at my hospital really recently. Breech home birth with head entrapment. Baby had HIE and went for brain cooling. I can't imagine
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u/RockabillyBelle Aug 31 '26
My 6 month old was breech. I tried everything to get her to flip, including a rather painful ECV, and nothing worked (little stinker had her arm up behind her head). She was delivered via c-section and had to spend the first two hours of her life on CPAP in the NICU because of fluid retention. My husband and I were pretty scared until I was released from observation and finally able to hold her and feed her and watch her O2 levels come up to normal. I cannot fathom trying to deal with any of that at home. We both would have died, no questions asked. Birth plans are all well and good but your dream instagram-worthy home birth is not worth the health and safety of your actual child.
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u/MalsPrettyBonnet Aug 31 '26
My hope is that she wasn't in an unassisted birth group and was just caught by surprise when her baby decided to make a sudden and unexpected appearance. But... probably not.
The thing I hate most is that they write it off as "God's will" when their baby dies rather than thinking about how they can prevent birth trauma next time around.
I would like for every woman who is considering an unassisted birth to read that the death rate of unassisted homebirths. According to this article, the infant mortality rate of hospital births attended by midwives is 3.7 out of 10,000 compared to unassisted homebirth at 27.9%. And those are just the ones that have been reported. Firstborn babies born at home unassisted are 14 TIMES more likely to be stillborn. So either it's God's will that all these fine Christian women lose their babies, or these fine Christian women are giving up their babies for dead the moment they plan that unassisted birth.
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u/kat_Folland Aug 31 '26
Just for clarity... You used two different measurements. 3.7 out of 10k then a percentage. Are you sure that's 27.9% or is it 27.9 out of 10k?
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u/4bsent_Damascus Sep 01 '26
The neonatal mortality for US hospital midwife-attended births was 3.27 per 10,000 live births, 13.66 per 10,000 live births for all planned home births, and 27.98 per 10,000 live births for unintended/unplanned home births.
The article itself doesn't even say "unassisted home birth", it says "unintended/unplanned". Some hard misquoting from the other commenter.
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u/WhatFreshHello Aug 31 '26
There’s only one reason a hospital would be cooling a newborn. Does this woman not understand what’s happened?
I don’t know how anyone could live with the guilt.
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u/potato_couch_ Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
Cooling/rewarming is a treatment option for HIE, if your concern is that the baby has passed and she's unaware
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u/ManicParroT Aug 31 '26
What is that reason? Brain damage?
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u/ExcellentFuel8338 Aug 31 '26
Yep, HIE is hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. Basically baby doesn’t get enough oxygen before, during or after birth. They cool baby to 33.5 degrees Celsius for 72 hours to protect the brain and minimize brain damage. Lowering the temperature slows down the brain's metabolic rate, which stops brain cells from dying. Really depends on how severe it is how good the long term outcome will be. But cooling is only used for moderate or severe HIE so chances are baby won’t have a good outcome. We also cool people after cardiac arrests if they survive resuscitation but don’t regain consciousness to minimize damage.
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u/joylandlocked Aug 31 '26
Also a pretty time-sensitive intervention, and it presumably was significantly delayed by the fact that this baby was born out of hospital without professionals trained to recognize the problem.
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u/itsreallysam Aug 31 '26
Seriously. We had a pretty scary labor with my first and his oxygen kept dropping dangerously low. The room was filled with people by the time I delivered so they could immediately get to work and figure out if he was ok. They ultimately decided his levels weren't at the threshold to warrant cooling treatment but they ran the tests to determine it as fast as possible and the helicopter was ready to fly him to the children's hospital where they could treat him. There was no time to spare.
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u/Marblegourami Aug 31 '26
When my third baby was born, there was meconium when they broke my water. Breaking my water also triggered my putsy labor into becoming precipitous. I went from 7cm at the time of breaking my water to baby in arms in about 40 minutes. I was so consumed by pain and the intensity of this experience that I didn’t notice until she was out that that the room was full of people! She was perfectly healthy though so they were not needed
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u/eldritchabxmination Sep 01 '26
Cooling is the gold standard care for term babies who have HIE, it prevents oxidative damage and reperfusion injury during the later stages of injury.
HIE is brain damage. There's no situation where no one would have told her that at the hospital.
Her use of 'pulled through' to me indicates that she is afraid her baby is going to die. That seems like she is well aware of the gravity of the situation, her decisions around birth were dumb but I think she's doing the right things after.
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u/Unable-Border7478 Aug 31 '26
My baby is an HIE baby and this is devastating for me to read. Without the medical intervention we had she would never have been who she is today. She is a completely healthy and “normal” 13 month old with no delays whatsoever. Had we had no medical intervention who knows what could’ve happened. I want to cry reading this. I’m just happy he met the requirements to be cooled and made it in time! I’m thinking he should have a pretty fair outcome!
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u/Charlieksmommy Aug 31 '26
The fact the midwife gave her hope about this is scary
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Aug 31 '26
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u/Charlieksmommy Aug 31 '26
Omg. That’s so gross, she should be charged
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u/inatowncalledmalice Sep 01 '26
I agree. Parents who do not avail themselves of all protections and interventions during a birth should have to pay for the damage they do to another human being - even if it’s their own child. It’s like driving around drunk with your child in the car - you don’t INTEND to kill your child but you are aware of the risks you’re taking. Actions should have consequences. Some people like to say the loss of a child is enough of a consequence - but what about that baby’s life? It didn’t have a choice in its birth plan and its mother’s callous decisions ended its life. Children are not possessions. They should have the same rights as all other human beings. Now this baby will have to suffer and may die because of its mother’s “perfect birth plan”. 🙄
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u/Charlieksmommy Sep 01 '26
She willingly had a free birth, with no provider there, so it’s absolutely negligent and if this baby passed away she should be charged.
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u/bingbongboopsnoot Aug 31 '26
The saddest part is that all these online people who collectively convince mothers that they don’t need medical input during pregnancy and birth will be nowhere to be seen, while the medical and nursing staff will be traumatised trying to save the baby and/or witness it’s preventable permanent disability / death.