Hi all, Just wish to put to you that a recent 'mandatory reporting' by a hospital-based midwife to DOCS was a personal statement about that midwife's perception and attitude to homebirth.
A couple had transferred to hospital with a baby 4 kgs for RDS or similar after a wonderful birth at home. No obvious reason for the RDS. Parents insisted on a lotus birth and the receiving doctors and paeds accepted that. Baby in oxygen box for 2 days, then to breast and to postnatal ward. Parents left hospital at day 5 after argument with paed about antibiotic dose (no pathology acknowledged) and midwife on duty decided to put in a mandatory reporting of above based on the fact that the parents did not dress their baby when they left. (and that they were leaving the hospital against medical advice and that they'd had a lotus birth, and an 'unassisted homebirth' which put their baby at risk.) Parents then had a visit by DOCS and also a letter suggesting their decision to have a homebirth seriously compromised their baby at birth. Have we all gone mad or has our right to make decisions been seriously impaired in the last few years?? Any comments?? Sue -- This mailing list is sponsored by ACE Graphics. Visit <http://www.acegraphics.com.au> to subscribe or unsubscribe.
