There have been midwives in Australia prosecuted for not transferring to hospital, and this lunatic woman in Canada who was dismissed from practice but still attends births, and recently a baby she attended died. I kind of get it in the US simply because of lack of public health care probably driving this due to cost, but in countries with public health care and so many midwife options it’s insane. I’m glad finally someone is shining a light on this, perhaps it’ll save some babies. A nurse on the medicine subreddit once said she had seen complications and deaths from home birth and freebirth that are in the triple digits.

Even when they do successfully get baby out, there’s SO much they don’t know, and when they take them to ER because baby is breathing funny (because their lungs are wet) or came out stunned or they didn’t wrap them up warmly and now they’re cold, or they turn blue because mom has untreated gestational diabetes and their sugar has crashed or whatever. It can be temporary but it’s just so not necessary.

Common, but if your placenta stops working baby is gone.

I think part of the culprit for this trend is the fact that Americans have to pay for maternity care, which is stupid (paying privately for any health care is also stupid). This makes them shop around and get sucked into this.

That’s actually a great idea. Why should any asshole just get to make shit up and influence people to make bad decisions?

Although those fuckers at Facebook and the like could do their jobs and actually moderate too.

And it goes wrong SO FAST. You couldn’t convince me to birth anywhere but a large tertiary care hospital with the stories I’ve read and heard and seen. Wouldn’t even get an ultrasound at a smaller hospital. I’ve seen a couple of things missed that ended up with difficult consequences, and I think it was the quality of the ultrasound.

Also, listen to your care providers. If they say you need the glucose challenge do it, if you have gestational diabetes listen carefully to the advice, if they say you need to be induced they aren’t saying that lightly, a placenta ages like milk and your baby WILL die if you go overdue. Don’t listen to people on the Internet about vitamin K and vaccines and all that crap, they are recommended with good reason, and you don’t want a baby with a bleed with permanent consequences.

I want everyone to have a peaceful successful uncomplicated birth, but be prepared for anything to happen. Don’t gamble with your baby’s life for what some jackass on Facebook says. They’re idiots.

I think some of it is access to care too; some women in the US do this simply because of the cost of a midwife or doctor, it seems.

But also in Canada we have WAY higher standards for who can call themselves a midwife than they do in the US, and the midwives here have university degrees. Also, I think people here and other countries who have public health care seek help faster than Americans simply because cost isn’t a barrier, even if they do get sucked into this nonsense.

Sit down, look at the picture of the (child aged) daughter of the person interviewing you, and ask if she’s single.

Pitter patter.

To be fair.

Mulder!

I’m 51 and I have an astonishingly complete long term memory, I can remember parts of being 2 years old, and pretty much everything from age 4 onward. I mean not every single day in kindergarten or anything like that, but I have a pretty good grasp on what my daily life was like most of the time. I kept a friends only online blog for years, and when I’ve reread it, there’s only bits and pieces I don’t immediately remember, nothing significant, but when I read it I have good recall of what happened, it’s just not immediately on the surface of my mind.

My short term memory is sometimes iffy, it’s largely due to stress though from my violent ex, but it improves when I am feeling safer.

I think this is because I read so much.

As an aside, a great deal of CSAM is shared through Facebook, they’ve been asked by CSAM survivors to stop this and they said no. The advocacy survivor group Phoenix 11 submitted six formal questions in the US Congress to old Zuckface fuckface about it, as he deployed end to end encryption which makes this possible, which he dodged like the lying fuck he is. Zuck would sell it himself if it made him a whole dollar and nobody should forget that.

Buy everyone tickets for our local independent cinema, and feed some unhoused souls.

Everyone was very shocked back in the day at the ending of Seinfeld.

I would like to hear the part about the right wing extremist pipeline if you wouldn’t mind. That’s hard to get out of.

I feel like alcohol really gets away on women. I have known two women who sort of just became casual alcoholics without really noticing, like just suddenly it crept up on them that they were drinking lighter forms of alcohol in significant quantities, but it just all seemed like being social and relaxing, and it wasn’t until they each had in their mid forties a stroke and an aneurysm respectively. Neither of them were drinking to cope with difficulties or anything with a maladaptive intent, it was done in a social fashion only, and then suddenly became a huge problem.

I think drinking for women is different than drinking for men, and I think we have worse outcomes as a result.

I don’t really drink anymore, maybe 2-3 times a year I’ll have a single drink. I never had any sort of habit before but I liked my glass or two of wine on a weekend. But I just felt like it would be better to stop, and it was.

Congratulations on your sobriety, it’s a hard thing to achieve!

Edit: found the article I was thinking of: https://medium.com/gentleblog/why-alcohol-poses-a-greater-danger-to-women-a56bc21496d6

I went to a women’s shelter to go over safety planning with a social worker to leave my ex last week. That was a hard step to take. Wish me luck.

1. You are a generous and responsible parent.

2. All I can say is that my ex’s parents basically didn’t do shit for him, and his father was very wealthy and his mother got a positively palatial alimony check in those days, and yet he was left to his own devices for higher education and early adulthood, and it showed up in his adult habits in that he did really spiteful things regarding money because those needs weren’t met. I’m sure because you are this supportive your son will feel confident and responsible and be well grounded in life because he didn’t have to think about having his needs met, which is the ultimate wound really.

Yes!