More on midwives

The Vagina Mafia rallies. Shoots self in foot.
CORONER HITS BACK AT CRITICS
‘…Coroner Garry Evans has hit back at critics of his findings into the death of a Waikato mother and baby, saying their widespread criticisms were not matched by helpful analysis.
Evans’ comments came after his provisional findings were sent to the Midwifery Council of New Zealand and the New Zealand College of Midwives.
Evans slammed remarks made by Karen Guilliland from the New Zealand College of Midwives who accused the court of relying on ill-informed medical opinion.
Guilliland criticised the court’s treatment of evidence, its findings and recommendations.
In reply, Evans said it was disappointing Guilliland’s widespread criticisms were not matched by helpful analysis of the case or the standard of the midwife’s training and education.
Evans said Guilliland’s description of three senior obstetricians as “ill informed”, all of whom gave evidence at the inquest, did a grave disservice to each of them and was unhelpful to the court.
Similarly, Evans said although the Midwifery Council of New Zealand criticised his findings, they did not provide an alternative explanation for the “errors of judgement and failures to follow proper midwifery practice that occurred in this case”….’

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7 Responses to More on midwives

  1. mawm says:

    The Midwifery Council is a Statutory body who are responsible for protecting the public (the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003) from harm caused by incompetent midwives, just as the Medical Council of New Zealand ensures doctors cause no harm. In the above case they “seem” to forget this.

    OTOH the College of Midwives is not statutory and are responsible for the training of midwives and ensuring their continued education and maintenance of standards. Ms Guilliland is their Chief Executive and is self described as being a women’s health activist and feminist midwife for the past 30 years and has lead the charge against medicalisation of childbirth. In my friends experience this usually means that if the patient has a medical condition that they don’t know anything about (which is just about everything) it is best to ignore it.

    Home birthing is practiced in many countries such as The Netherlands where they have medical response teams nearby to respond to tragedies such as recounted in the link above. There also seems to be communication between the home birth team and the hospital maternity team. New Zealand is very different as shown by this tragic case where any back up is through dealing 111 and home birthing advocates do not present it for what it is. If asked about safety they will quote figures for countries such as The Netherlands. Home Birth Aotearoa, which is the national collective of regional home birth groups, says(t)he pervasive medicalised birth culture infests the birth care many of us receive, rendering our rights to informed choice and to autonomous birthing as little more than a feminist joke. While many of us in the home birth community can see through the misogynist poison that seeks to oppress birthing women and their rights, it still manages to seep into our experiences, and those of our midwives. I guess that if you go to them for your care during pregnancy and childbirth Darwin has a strong hand in the outcomes.

    • KG says:

      “If asked about safety they will quote figures for countries such as The Netherlands”
      :shock:
      That is a fraud perpetrated on the taxpayer.

      • mawm says:

        In the past they never had to keep any stats on outcomes. This is now being done and reviewed. Unfortunately there are no records of birth injuries such as cerebral palsy.

  2. Flashman says:

    To be honest, I’ve never understood NZ’s infatuation with mid-wives and popping sprogs on the 5-years-to-pay super-king in the master bedroom.

    Color me old-fashioned but the term “midwife” conjurers up an image of a village crone on a wobbly black bicycle with a bag of chicken feathers and box of matches to burn them.

  3. mistress mara says:

    The hairy-ankled , anti doctor lot have been doing this stuff for many, many years which is why I wouldn’t even CONSIDER having a midwife when I was pregnant 23 years ago. This rabid lot even admitted once that the “process was more important than the outcome.” I’m aware that, because of midwives’ reluctance to promptly refer a difficult birth, there are any number of damaged people out there who would be healthier if only they had been born with more intervention, not less.