A homebirth midwife crowd sourced a life and death decision with her Facebook friends while a baby was literally dying. He’s not the only one who has died at the hands of homebirth midwives. Indeed, even the recent study from the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), the organization that represents homebirth midwives, shows that homebirth has a perinatal death rate 450% higher than comparable risk hospital birth.
The homebirth midwifery community has not merely been silent on this baby’s death (like the deaths of all the babies that have died at their hands), they have deleted and banned and attempted to erase the evidence that this baby lived and died. Their plan appears to be to do nothing about it, investigate no one, hold no one to account.
Let’s not let them bury this baby twice, once in a tiny coffin in the ground and then again by erasing him from public consciousness. To prevent that, let’s leverage the power of social media to finally hold homebirth midwives to account.
Introducing the Not Buried Twice Facebook Page.
Please visit the page, “like” the page, and share your thoughts.
If you haven’t done so already, please sign the Change.org petition expressing our revulsion to Jan Tritten, Editor of Midwifery Today, who was the midwife who solicited the advice of her Facebook friends while the baby was dying. 537 people have signed so far. Many have left comments, some heartbreaking.
Please keep sending Facebook messages, Tweets and emails to:
Jan Tritten
Jan Tritten’s Facebook page
@JanTritten on Twitter
Midwifery Today
Midwifery Today’s Facebook page
The Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA)
MANA’s Facebook Page
@MANACommunity on Twitter
and
Melissa Cheyney, CPM in her role as Head of the Board of Direct Entry Midwifery in the state of Oregon (where Jan Tritten lives).
Email: melissa.cheyney@oregonstate.edu (She does not appear to have a separate email address at MANA or the Board of Direct Entry Midwifery)
What should you write? I leave that up to you, but for those who aren’t sure, I have a suggestion:
Can you tell us what you plan to do to investigate the death of the home birth baby whose care Jan Tritten crowd sourced on Facebook?
Short, simple, polite and to the point.
In my judgment, the most important thing we can accomplish is to raise public awareness of the hideous death rate at homebirth, the fact that American homebirth midwives (CPMs, LMs, DEMs and lay midwives) are NOT real midwives, and don’t meet the standards for ANY other midwives in the industrialized world, and the fact that American homebirth midwives are trying to erase the existence of babies who died at their hands by deleting and banning on their own websites, message boards, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.
Let everyone know that this baby, and many babies like him, die preventable deaths at homebirth and henceforth, we will make sure that these babies are #notburiedtwice.
