At the end of December I wrote about 22 children left motherless when 7 different women died at homebirth. I wasn’t aware that an additional 2 mothers died in December leaving 11 more children motherless.
Two weeks ago, I wrote about one of the maternal deaths. A mother in Texas died after a postpartum transfer from homebirth. The baby was born lifeless but surived after cooling therapy to mitigate brain damage from lack of oxygen at birth. The mother died despite days of heroic efforts to save her life at the hospital.
Yesterday I learned about another mother, also from Texas, who died 9 days before the first death.
According to her husband:
Dec 11th 2014 my wife texted me and said that it was time for me to come home for the birth of our 8th child. This was our 7th homebirth, the other 6 an amazing success.
She had no reason to suspect that she would suffer a life threatening complication, amniotic fluid embolus, but she did. Her labor was proceeding normally, and then.
The midwife checked her and the baby and it was time to get her to push. As the pain got worse she looked at me and said it was so hard. I tried to comfort her as best I could. Then she passed out in the tub.
When seconds counted, they were many minutes away from help.
We called 911 and got her out of the tub onto the bed. We could see that she wasn’t breathing so we tried CPR. She kind of came to a little bit and was trying to push the baby out with all she had while not being able to breath. She then passed out again never to awaken.
On arrival at the hospital:
…[They] did an emergency C section in the ER. They then struggled to keep her alive as I sat outside the curtain more afraid than I had ever been in my entire life before. They took Lilly to the NICU to try to save her but to no avail.
The mother never recovered despite intensive treatment.
After 5 grueling weeks of watching her almost bite through her lip when she would have seizure like episodes and seeing her kept alive by machines, she died on my 6 year old’s birthday Jan 17th.
Would she have survived had she been in a hospital? That’s hard to say because amniotic fluid embolus has a 50% mortality rate. But we can be sure that she would have had a better chance at survival and the baby would have had a much better chance with an immediate C-section.
I’m not sure if things would have been different if we would have had a hospital birth, but there is a chance I would be holding a sweet little girl and perhaps snuggled next to my wife if we would have known more about AFE. This is why we are all posting our stories, donating our time, and money. Lord willing we might be able to save one baby or one momma and it will all be worth it.
Now 33 children have been left motherless by the deaths of 9 different mothers at homebirth.
Thinking about homebirth? Think again.
Think about leaving your children motherless and their father struggling to cope.
This father is warning you. Don’t ignore his plea.
