Home delivery lunacy

Neonatology

More dumbing down of health care, and more arrogance from Patricia Hewitt. God, who will rid me of this tiresome woman.

It is reported today that Patricia Hewitt is to “challenge the assumption” that the safest place to give birth is in hospital and that home births can be dangerous.”

It goes on: “…doctors will be told to offer all pregnant women the chance to deliver their baby at home with the help of a midwife and their own choice of pain relief.”

Told, note.

Dr Crippen will not be “told” to make this offer.

Dr Crippen would love to have a system of home deliveries but home deliveries are only safe if there is a fully equipped obstetric flying squad which can respond and arrive in a matter of minutes. An obstetric flying squad needs two doctors, one for the mother and one for the baby, an incubator and lots of other kit.

Obstetric flying squad

There are no obstetric flying squads where Dr Crippen works. There are very few in the country.

Home deliveries will be supervised by madwives, often the so called “independent” madwives. "Independent" madwives have "chosen to work outside the NHS" primarily because the NHS does not support their practices.

Some of the militant home-delivery brigade of madwives are the most arrogant and dangerous health care workers in the NHS. They do not understand that a catastrophic post-partum haemorrhage can result in the death of a mother within minutes, and that it cannot be predicted. They are not trained to resuscitate flat babies; they have neither the competence nor the equipment. And, as so often with specialist nurses, they do not know their own limitations, they do not know what they do not know, and they resent any attempt by the medical profession to try to educate them.

They want to jump into the birthing pool with the pregnant mother, the husband and the vicar, sing ten green bottles and then eat the placenta. They ignore the risks. And when disaster strikes, as it surely will, it will be Tom Reynolds who has to try to pick up the pieces.

There is much that is wrong with the hospital obstetric service in this country. That needs to be addressed.

A sudden unplanned switch to home deliveries managed by madwives is not the answer. Dr Crippen and his partners will have nothing to do with home deliveries. We will do everything within our power to persuade women not to have them. If they insist, we may have to remove them from our list.

Why has Hewitt done this? Two likely reasons. Her focus groups have told her that home deliveries are popular and home deliveries will take the strain off an overworked hospital system, thus saving money. More votes and less expenditure. Perfect.

Trouble is, babies cannot vote. Particularly not dead babies.

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An American neonatologist points out to me a recent discussion about a home birth catastrophe caused by an incompetent madwife going beyond the boundaries of her training; indeed going beyond the boundaries of common sense:

"The baby was full-term but he needed a ventilator to breathe. He had been deprived of oxygen during the birth process and suffered perinatal asphxia. He suffered it bad. His kidneys didn't work, his heart wasn't so good either, he had seizures until he became comatose, and eventually his brain got so bad that there were barely any brain waves. After discussing it with his parents, we removed the baby from the ventilator and he died.

This baby was the result of an attempted home delivery. An uncertified midwife kept the mother at home far too long, having mother push and push, trying to keep her from having to go to a hospital with it's too technical and "unnatural" approach to birth, where, heaven forbid, they might actually try to monitor the baby's condition during labor and intervene if it were necessary. By the time she did finally go to a hospital and deliver, the baby was a goner. He was a fine baby. If it hadn't been a screwed up delivery, he'd probably be playing ball with his dad now."

Read the full, horrifying article, and the 175 comments it attracted, here. I hope Patricia Hewitt catches up with it.

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A further article, "Home birth tragedy" , has been added above. A midwife tragically lost a baby during a home birth due to a cord prolapse. It took too long to get to the hospital. She still advocates home births. The article is here. Would anyone wishing to comment on the new article please do so here, so that the debate stays in one place.