My Womb For God's Purposes: The Perils Of Unassisted Childbirth In The Quiverfull Movement

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/belief/141499/my_womb_for_god%27s_purposes%3A_the_perils_of_unassisted_childbirth_in_the_quiverfull_movement_

My Womb for God's Purposes: The Perils of Unassisted Childbirth in the Quiverfull Movement

By Kathryn Joyce, Religion Dispatches. Posted July 23, 2009.

Distrustful of experts, many Quiverfull followers are leaving childbirth to God. The recent death of a newborn, however, exposes a growing rift.

In the last week of June, two different circles of blogs invested in the Quiverfull movement—both as critics and supporters of the pro-natalist, patriarchal, conservative Christian lifestyle—focused on the sad news of the death of one Quiverfull mother’s child shortly after birth. The woman was Carri Chmielewski, author of the now-private blog “Carri Me Away,” where she described her Quiverfull lifestyle, eschewing contraception, having as many children as God gave her, submitting to her husband’s leadership, and, in a related conviction common among Quiverfull adherents, her plans to deliver her children through unassisted childbirth—a home birth with no doctors, nurses, or midwives to help her and her husband through labor and aftercare.

For weeks, Chmielewski’s plans drew the scrutiny and concern of Quiverfull critics, such as the commenters on the wryly-named ”Free Jinger” forum, a discussion board dedicated to “freeing” Jinger Duggar, one of the daughters of the Quiverfull Duggar family featured on reality TV show 18 Kids and Counting. Commenters there and elsewhere followed news of Chmielewski’s pregnancy, at first with light snark directed at this exemplar of Quiverfull conviction, and then growing concern as Chmielewski described mounting complications: she reportedly measured much larger than expected for a normal pregnancy and discussed her own doubts and misgivings about going through with the unassisted birth.

Because of these worries, Chmielewski sought the opinion of a certified professional midwife (a class of midwife distinct from certified nurse midwives, who have extensive medical training) from Central Indiana Home Birth Midwives. According to retired OB-GYN blogger Amy Tuteur, the midwife told Chmielewski that she was carrying twins, and maintained her diagnosis despite an ultrasound that only revealed one fetus, claiming that one twin was “hiding” behind the other. As Chmielewski was nearly three weeks past her due date, the midwife advised her to wait; when the baby was born, Chmielewski suffered amniotic fluid embolus (a rare condition that can occur in hospital births as well), causing the child, Benaiah, to die, and the mother to survive in critical condition.

At Salon’s Broadsheet blog and the Free Jinger forums, commenters weighed on whether the death constituted actionable child neglect, in the model of Christian Scientists—or the recent case involving the Nemenhah Band—refusing medical care for their children. Chmielewski’s husband, who critics charge has erased or hidden much of his wife’s past writing, described her survival as a miracle of God, who spared her even as He took their son.

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[dixiegrrrrl]

1. I must admit I hve never heard of these folks.

I AM hearing more and more rants that "the Muslins are going to outbreed us", one such rant about 2 months ago in our local weekly rag, complete with alarmist "statistics" of how, in 20 years, Germany will be
completely Muslim.
So, are the ..Quiverfull... ( I refuse to look at that name too closely ) and other groups like it planning to ut breed the Muslims, or is compulsory birthing a separate issue for them?
Anyone know?

[XemaSab]

2. That's not the overt goal

but part of the idea is that you're breeding warriors for Christ, both metaphorically and literally.

[Turbineguy]

3. Not being satisfied

with merely denying them a brain, God gave them the ability to breed.

[Solly Mack]

4. That pisses me off (and saddens me) to no end

[madrchsod]

5. i guess midwifes are the tools of satan!

god put midwifes on the earth for a reason. he wanted all his children to be born and live productive lives. these nut balls are not following god`s wishes.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. so sad for the baby and the deluded mother

Basically she's going back to the good old days when our great-great grandmothers living on the frontier often gave birth unassisted. They'd have 12, 13, 15 kids--and only a handful would live past infancy. Wonder if this family intends on refusing all medical help at any time for their kids? I'm sure our ancestors would have loved to have modern medicine save those babies who died.

[doni_georgia]

7. the hypocrisy

The thing that kills me most about the people I personally know who follow this quiverfull philosophy is that out of the families I know who believe in this bullshit - ALL of them are on some kind of government assistance and all of them are republicans. How's that for hypocrisy???

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. If they are true to the philosophy

then they have large families and the families TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES!!!!!!!

[doni_georgia]

15. Yeah, but fact is the wives are stay at home moms

with too many kids for their husbands to support on one salary, so WIC, food stamps, etc. are needed, especially while the kids are young. They are big homeschoolers too, but the sad fact is most of the older kids are too busy helping take care of the younger kids to spend much time on school work.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

23. But my great-great grandmothers were "stay at home moms"

and their husbands were expected to support their large families. It would have been a disgrace if they hadn't, in fact. Remember, these Quiverfull people are out to be like the old timers. This should include looking after themselves. If they were in power, they would do away with all these government programs, you know.

[kestrel91316]

24. That is no coincidence. They call it "bleeding the beast". But I just

call it sponging.

[hedgehog]

9. Did women living on the frontier actually give birth unassisted

as a matter of course, or is that a historical fallacy? I can see it happening in winter on a remote farm, but I don't see people planning to be alone.

You're right about children dying. I don't know which is worse, the stories of infant after infant dying, or the stories of parents losing six children in a week to measles.

[supernova]

10. Not as a matter of course

If you possibly could, you had female relatives to assist you and possibly the local midwife.

The idea that 19 Cent women wanted to give birth alone is a myth.

These quiverfull folks are so deluded, and it hurts moms and babies.

:-(

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

13. It depended upon the circumstances

A lot of people moved to new territory in groups. This was the case in the settlement of Naples, NY. Most settlers came from the Berkshires, and many were related. So there was support around for a woman who was giving birth, but I don't know that those present were trained midwives.

Many people don't know that Abraham Lincoln's sister, Sarah, died in childbirth, about a year after her marriage. Again, I haven't found evidence of any trained midwives being around.

And it wasn't only measles that killed off whole families-cholera and typhoid were also killers, and sometimes came in epidemics. I have evidence of such sicknesses killing off entire families--usually the sickness wasn't named, but was called "fever" or the like.

[hedgehog]

16. Before Florence Nightingale, mothers were expected to be able to

nurse family members. I suspect there was a patchwork of local women who had apprenticed as midwives and family members who took care of each other. Wealthier people probably called in a doctor. Again, I suspect the assistant's skill's varied wildly regardless of formal education. The local midwife may have had better outcomes than the trained doctor who believed in scientific bleeding to relieve bad humours.

As a sidebar - how many skilled midwives were murdered during the European witch craze, and how much of their knowledge was lost?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

21. Very true

Physicians in the 1600 and 1700s were apprenticed to another physician to learn their trade; the papers I've seen look like those of other apprenticeships, too. I think midwifery was, at the time, informal--I'm sure there was always some wise woman who was known to be good with helping birthing.

[JitterbugPerfume]

11. was Andrea Yates a member of this cult?

[Lance_Boyle]

19. What cult? Christianity? Yes, she was one of those.

Quiverfull is a branch of the cult focused entirely on breeding more cult members.

[Ilsa]

12. I'm glad she got a midwife, but I don't understand why the midwife

would tell her she was carrying twins when it wasn't true and there was no evidence to support that.

Sounds like AFE could happen whether mother delivers at home or in a hospital, with or without an OB managing the case. Hospitals have neonatal deaths, also. I don't see any reason for a charge of neglect based on this story, even if the mother is a nut.

BTW, a good friend of mine gave birth to her ninth child. Her last last four or five had been homebirths. This oe started at home, but something wasn't going quite right so the midwife took her to the hospital. Mom and baby are fine, but I don't know who took the case.

[hedgehog]

17. That's something most people can't understand. Sometimes

things start going very wrong very quickly during labor or even at the very end of labor. Home births are fine if there is time to get aid if problems develop.

[surrealAmerican]

20. This looks more like a case of malpractice on the part of the midwife.

She should have been able to identify the risk and refer the mother to a doctor.

[AngryAmish]

14. I thought typical homebirthers were nuts

Well, they are topped by these fools.

[Ilsa]

22. My neighbor gave birth at home earlier this year. She is far from

being a nutcase, and she is in her forties. She and her husband are very progressive democrats who have lived all over the US. They both have liberal arts majors and she had two other quite successful homebirths. She is turned off by the over-medicalization and corporatism of birth.

Alot of OBs still try to "run the delivery" according to what shows up as monitoring on computer screens, not giving the mother or baby any say in what is going on.

I suggest watching The Business of Being Born, if you want more information. I saw it on HBO recently, and I bet there are dvds of it somewhere.

I suspect about half of the homebirths are families like in the OP, and the other half are independent women who don't care for the current medical approach to childbirth. I don't like it either, but as a high risk mom, I didn't have a choice.

[AngryAmish]

25. If your neighbor gave birth at home, she is per se a nutcase

If a woman is over forty, no matter how good her health is it is classified a high-risk pregnancy.

What is she was "turned-off" by the over-medicalization of her angina? Should she then shun cardiologists who try to "run her heart"?

Avoid these loons.

[Ilsa]

26. Where the hell do you get "angina"? She's a healthy pregnant

woman who had given birth at home three years before that, and four years before that. Her body handles pregnancy and delivery quite well. She wasn't at risk for anything other than age-related fetal defects, which she had tested for with the help of her midwife. Her midwife also did regular blood tests, etc. The difference is she had much more personalized care. She and her husband would receive medical care if they need it. The hospitals in our town have a higher than average c-section rate. At one time they was pushing forty-fucking-percent. Most of that was related to the convenience of the doctors. I'm a nurse and I've witnessed it. You don't know anything about this situation.

[AngryAmish]

27. The only thing I need to know is your neighbor is a nutter

Giving birth at home is nutty.

[Ilsa]

29. You don't know what you are talking about. It's nutty to slam people who

take charge of their own healthcare. I know these people. They are certainly more progressive and knowledgeable than you, and wouldn't pass judgment on you. They aren't religious freaks, either. Like I said, try watching The Business of Being Born if you want to know what is going on in the corporatised world of obstetrics.

[kimmylavin]

18. Why did she get an ultrasound?

What happened to doing all of this unassisted, and trusting to God?
Oh, yes, they're being selective about religion again...

You want to give birth at home?
Fine, go for it.
But have support with you - not just the husband waiting to "catch" (from the article, and I cannot think of a person that I would want to catch LESS than my dear of a husband, who is afraid of blood!) - get a midwife, doula or even a friend, preferably one who has already given birth, or at the very least assisted one.
And have an emergency plan, which may just consist of going to an evil hospital that will do all it can to save both you and and your baby.

[dugaresa]

28. read the article and am horrified at how any "common sense" inclinations she

had about her situation were then twisted around to be her lack of faith in god.

it is apparent that the woman knew she was having problems but she kept moving forward because to go to a doctor or a hospital would have shown a lack of faith in her god.