Home Birth is Looking Better All the Time
Imagine: You are happily expecting the birth of your child, and when the thrilling moment approaches you check into your local hospital, a scenario common to most American mothers-to-be. You give birth to a healthy baby boy, but when you, yourself, are finally released from the hospital, it is more than three months later and you have lost your uterus, both arms, both legs and very nearly your life.

That's what happened to Claudia Meija. Somehow during what should have been a very brief stay at the hospital, in an area (labor and delivery) where the patients aren't even sick, she acquired an "aggressive streptococcal infection," a.k.a. flesh-eating bacteria.

There were no complications with the birth: "Everything was normal." But then she developed a rash ("possible allergic reaction to the sheets") and severe stomach pain ("normal for someone who had just given birth"). Two days later, doctors performed a hysterectomy. Twelve days later they amputated all her limbs, having given her the choice between that and dying. Even so, it was months before she was healthy enough to leave the hospital.

Is it any wonder that when Jon was in the hospital with viral meningitis I prayed as much that he would not acquire a new infection as I did that he recover from the original?

Is it any wonder that, despite its own inherent risks, home birth is looking more and more like the safer alternative?
Posted by sursumcorda on Saturday, January 21, 2006 at 9:49 am | Edit
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Would you believe this can happen at a home birth too? Brenda Shae AKA Victoria Johnson AKA Victoria Konradson was a midwife at a homebirth. She stitched a perineal tear without wearing gloves, transmitting MRSA from herself to the mom's vagina, leaving the mother with the fight of her life. http://oregonmidwifereviews.blogspot.com/2011/09/wherever-you-go-there-you-are.html



Posted by Serenity on Tuesday, October 04, 2011 at 9:49 pm

Certainly I can believe it, although it's not clear to me in this case whether the midwife transmitted the infection to the mother, or vice versa.

Life is not risk-free. The questions each person must ask about any decision, and answer for himself, are "What are the risks if I do this? What are the risks if I do not do this? Do the potential benefits outweigh the risks, or not?"

In the case of birth, some people will decide that homebirth, in general, is the safer option. Others will decide in favor of a birthing center, or a hospital.

It is critical that pregnant women and their families maintain both free access to information and the freedom to make their own choices.

Thank you for your comment, Serenity.



Posted by SursumCorda on Wednesday, October 05, 2011 at 5:55 am
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