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Even in the hospital a cesarean section cannot be accomplished 4 minutes after disaster strikes. Get real for a minute! In hospital it is set up for 30 to 45 minutes from decision to incision. A well organized home birth with accessible back up can manage the risk by instituting emergency procedures, and notifying the team in the hospital to be ready. This is why OHSU's response to the appropriate transfer of this mother was so out of line. Get away from the tv version of birth emergencies and look at the reality. Homebirth is a legal right for women in the UK and their results are excellent. A mother and family who actually understand the risk inherent in giving birth can be trusted to make the decisions that are right for them, even if they choose the riskier hospital birth!

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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Healthy babies are number one it is certain. What OHSU did was designed to make it difficult for midwives to access higher risk care thereby threatening the health and safety of other babies. Shortsighted to be sure. Have your baby where you feel safest, but be sure to educate yourself as the Obstetricians at OHSU and elsewhere see themselves as a surgical specialty first, when most of the mothers they cut could have had both a vaginal delivery and a healthy baby.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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The midwife did what she was supposed to do and transferred the birth to OHSU. If OHSU doctors had treated her appropriately everyone would have been happy with the outcome. If OHSU would return to teaching doctors how to avoid unnecessareans perhaps more low-risk mothers would choose to deliver with them. Until the proverbial freeze-over then mothers deserve the safety of low-tech natural birth at home or in Birthing Centers with midwives. If you can't trust a doctor to assist with a VBAC in the hospital then a mother, to be safer, needs to be out of the hospital. And let's not forget how hard it is to get a water labor or water birth in L&D!! At home I have my tub.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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