Danielle and Michael were ecstatic to be expecting a baby, and chose a homebirth midwife for what they thought would be a beautiful, relaxing, and safe delivery. A year on, they are left with a dead baby. What went wrong?
Danielle and Michael toured a few hospitals, but ultimately decided to have a homebirth. "We thought it was safe and it would be a beautiful, relaxing birth," Danielle told SteadyHealth. "We asked around and I was told to watch The Business of Being Born. We could not find any studies other than what the natural birth community puts up and tells everyone, which was all positive stories and feedback."
They chose Christy Collins, a "Certified Professional Midwife" or CPM they found online. "The appointments were normal and at first she was great." They paid their midwife upfront in cash, and the midwife in turn organized prenatal care. "I actually did not know about all the types of midwives," Danielle said. "I had no idea that CPMs are not recognized as medical professionals and have no actual level of training."
"Closer to the end, things changed and she acted like a completely different person," Danielle remembers. "I only saw Christy for my all appointments and never saw an OB until after we were rushed into a hospital at the end."
"We never had any issues through my pregnancy. It was the end that we found out we had zero fluid but didn’t understand what that meant. She told us that I needed to drink more water. She offered to do a membrane sweep and sent me home with herbs to help keep my contractions steady. She assured us that our baby looked terrific and everything was fine."
Despite knowing Danielle was already overdue and had no amniotic fluid, Christy Collins didn't advise her to go to hospital. "She did tell us that we could get more testing done by a perinatologist but said that since we were overdue they would only force us into being unnecessarily induced or do a C-section." As if being induced or having a C-section was the worst thing that could possibly happen! Danielle and Michael found out that it wasn't, all too soon.
Did the midwife take any moral responsibility for what happened to Gavin Michael, then? "No," Danielle says. "She made up many excuses and blamed anything she could on us instead of admitting what she did wrong. She even blamed me publicly using lies to cover what mistakes she had made."
Danielle is referring to a letter Christy Collins posted on Facebook, a letter that was addressed to Danielle but was never sent to her, in which she claimed to have told Danielle to go to hospital. The letter came after Christy Collins publicly denied having been Danielle's midwife at all. Collins was never held accountable for her actions or lack thereof, and though she has taken a break from active midwifery, she is free to practice again in future.
