Ever notice how often the word “healing” is bandied about in homebirth circles?
Type the words “healing homebirth” into Google and you get more than 750,000 links almost all of which describe the “trauma” of a “failed” attempt at vaginal birth, or the need for a C-section or a failed previous homebirth.
I have a question for all those women contemplating “healing” through homebirth. How does a dead baby “heal” from a failed homebirth?
Today’s post on Guggie Daly’s cesspit of misinformation website is typical. Entitled Healing from a Homebirth Transfer, it includes the usual self-absorbed, self-serving drivel:
I gave birth on Saturday to my fourth baby. A boy. He is beautiful and healthy. It was an intended homebirth. I had seen a well respected midwife beginning at 8 weeks into the pregnancy. I got to 41 weeks 3 days when she wanted me to have a biophysical profile done.
Well, my baby failed the test. They gave me a 2 for fluid levels and said my placenta was a grade 3. She came to my home to tell me we needed to induce… I was made to feel selfish, and that I would be saved by this almighty induction.
Now, I am grieving. I will never have my peaceful home birth. I will never be without the trauma of 36 hours of labor. I will never get back the lost moment …
In other words: I had a hospital birth and all I got was a healthy baby.
I feel as if I cannot forgive them and I am struggling so badly with this. I am of course very thankful for my boy. He’s perfect. And I thank God he IS okay. But that doesn’t take away the hurt. I will always feel robbed. I know he would’ve been okay and that I should’ve walked out of that hospital.
Really?
That’s what Sadie’s mother thought and Sadie ended up with a profound brain injury.
That’s what Serentity’s mother thought and Serenity ended up dead.
That’s what Joshua’s mother thought, and he died, too.
This mother had a “successful” VBAC and her daughter is permanently brain injured.
How about Vera?
Or Charlie?
Or the dozens of other babies I have reported on over the years including two babies currently struggling to survive severe brain injuries that occurred at two separate homebirths in the past 2 weeks?
Evidently a mother “heals” from a non-vaginal birth by risking the life of her next baby. But how does a baby “heal” from a failed homebirth?
How does Sadie or Charlie heal from the loss of brain function that will leave them profoundly impaired for the rest of their lives.
How do Vera or Joshua or any other the other babies who died “heal” from being dead?
They don’t, but who cares? Homebirth is always and only about the mother’s feelings and bragging rights. Apparently a brain injured or dead baby is a small price to pay for the mother’s “healing.”
