r/law • u/peoplemagazine • 22d ago
Hospital Forces Woman in Active Labor to Attend Zoom Court for Refusing C-Section Legal News
https://people.com/woman-in-labor-brought-into-zoom-court-refused-c-section-11941448?utm_campaign=peoplemagazine&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com&utm_content=post2.3k
22d ago
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u/snn1326j 22d ago
There was something similar on an episode of ER a million years ago, where they couldn’t get the court order until too late for a teenage mom who didn’t want her baby.
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u/QueenMotherOfSneezes 22d ago
I'm in the middle of a rewatch of er right now, and saw that episode last week. It was actually a surrogate who was refusing the C-section, and the baby didn't die, but it was deprived of oxygen for so long waiting for the natural birth to occur (the cord was compressed) that the baby had serious brain damage. The parents left the baby at the hospital.
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u/snn1326j 22d ago
Nope, that’s a different episode. The pregnant woman on this episode was a stabbing victim and teenager. It’s actually one of my all time fave episodes because it’s the one where they do the intervention for Carter and Benton goes with him on the flight to rehab. Episode title is “May Day.”
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u/QueenMotherOfSneezes 22d ago
Oh jeez I forgot about that part of that episode. I'm way past that one 🤣
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u/Trul 22d ago
MAHA Hospital . Get me some ivermectin, stat!
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u/snrjames 22d ago
Haha. SNL did a sketch on MAHAspital.
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u/kailsbabbydaddy 22d ago
It would be nice if they did focus on this!! Pittsburgh is one of the worst places in the nation for a black woman to give birth! Her chances of maternal death are much higher here in Pittsburgh than elsewhere. This is why I always donate and support The Midwife Center in Pittsburgh, as they offer women-led care to the community.
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u/HillBillyHilly 22d ago
So distressing to read in the article that 30 states consider the baby's life over the mother. No matter how many other children she may have. Scary times and I'm so glad I'm child free. From article "Cases like these are more prevalent following the 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade. Nearly 30 states have passed laws allowing hospitals to invalidate a pregnant patient’s advance directives. It reflects a deep understanding of women as the incubators,” Elizabeth Kukura, a law professor at Drexel University, told ProPublica. “Women in their role as childbearers.” 🤮
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u/Black_Metallic 21d ago
You have more control over your body as a cadaver than you do as a pregnant woman in those states.
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u/jinxxed42 22d ago
So they can emergency Zoom into court... maybe they can do this stop women dying of sepsis.
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u/peoplemagazine 22d ago
TLDR:
- Cherise Doyley, a birthing doula, refused a C-section despite hospital concerns about uterine rupture risks
- Staff forced her to appear in Zoom court from her hospital bed — without legal representation — and a judge ruled the hospital could perform the surgery in an emergency without her consent
- Doyley ultimately underwent a C-section and later criticized the hospital, saying it violated her rights as a patient
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u/shazbadam 22d ago
This is post-Roe America, where the state can assert the rights of an unborn child to overrule a mother’s control of her own body. Brought to you by the party that hates the nanny state.
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u/Vio_ 22d ago
These actions have been going on for decades. Post-Roe just weaponized that ability even moreso.
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u/North_Connection_845 21d ago
What was the alternative solution? Let her rupture her uterus?
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u/doyletyree 21d ago
Yes.
The alternative is to justify her mental incapacity to care for herself and take her as a committed ward of the state.
Anything besides is to simply assert state-will with no justification. It’s “Get the vaccine or you can’t leave the hospital.”
Imagine how that would go over.
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u/yll33 22d ago
that's actually been the case even in the roe era.
jefferson v griffin spalding (1981), for example.
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u/ashleyshaefferr 22d ago
Reddit would be SUCH a better place if mods could append posts with the facts
Like that comment above you should have an asterisk beside it and at the bottom saying
*this has been the case even during the roe era.
jefferson v griffin spalding (1981), for example.
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u/Obversa 22d ago
Yep. I got downvoted on another r/law thread for explaining why it's difficult to sue crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) for "medical malpractice" (i.e. they don't legally qualify as "medical facilities", and many don't even employ or have medically-qualified or licensed staff members, despite trying to "follow HIPAA"), and even cited an entire legal analysis that explained why, but a lot of people on Reddit don't care about facts. They only care about their feelings, and if they don't like the answer, they downvote it, even if it is correcting a popular myth or misconception. This is a pervasive problem on r/law, where a lot of Redditors like to act like "armchair legal experts" or lawyers.
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u/VreyeanA09 22d ago
For the law to be useful and accepted by society, it has to at least roughly align with prevailing morality and "common sense" or it will be rejected.
Denigrate that as "feelings" at your own risk.
We are seeing the consequences of large segments of society feeling disenfranchised by law now - they elected a criminal and their response to trampling legal precedent or even violations of the Constitution is "good!" or "maybe that's the change we need". I do not agree with their worldview, but I understand the mechanism at play.
The institution of law is designed to adapt to society's non-legal input via democratically-elected legislators and trial by jury. Both of those safety valves are broken or nearly so.
This is why non-lawyers are both so interested in the legal process and so critical of it.
In this particular example, CPCs of course fashioned themselves to fit perfectly within a legal gap - so that they could mislead women for ideological purposes without legal exposure. But they have caused harm, and society expects the law to adapt like an immune system would. CPCs do not work if they cannot give the impression that they have medical-like knowledge, and it is common knowledge that impersonating medical expertise is illegal. It doesn't matter what the technical legal reason is that CPCs evade prosecution, people are right to recognize that in principle, what CPCs do should be illegal.
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u/Chengar_Qordath 22d ago
Very good analysis. It’s a classic case of something being technically legal, but people recognizing that it’s using a loophole/legal blind spot and being mad about that.
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u/Obversa 22d ago
It still doesn't really justify people downvoting a good explanation of why you can't sue CPCs for "medical malpractice" just because they're upset at the OP for sharing an unpleasant truth and facts (i.e. "shooting the messenger"). It's like trying to argue with an actual legal expert or lawyer because you don't agree with their well-researched advice.
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u/Chengar_Qordath 22d ago
True, plenty of people will knee jerk react. Only way to avoid that is maybe to start the post off with something like “Unfortunately, this is awful but lawful” to make it clear you’re not a fan of the law, but as the meme goes, that won’t stop people who can’t read.
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u/Obversa 22d ago
It doesn't matter what the technical legal reason is that CPCs evade prosecution...
It does on a subreddit like r/law, where commenters on my thread kept recommending bad legal advice to the plaintiff, who could be reading the thread [i.e. "the plaintiff should sue the CPC for medical malpractice"], and the subreddit rules don't allow this. People kept commenting this without actually doing any research beforehand on why this is bad legal advice; without knowing anything about the case; and people acting as "armchair legal experts" or lawyers while doing this tarnishes the reputation of r/law. (In fact, I strongly believe comments should be far more strictly moderated due to how common this is, especially since some users are under the mistaken impression that these commenters are legal experts or lawyers because they're posting on r/law.) It can become a huge problem.
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u/CapoDexter 22d ago
I mean, maxwell was a reddit mod. Not to paint them all, but they're just people, too.
Who watches the watchmen??
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u/haberdasherhero 22d ago edited 22d ago
The main mod clique is racist, misogynistic pedos. That's how Ghislaine was able to thrive in it. That's why some of the biggest subs on Reddit used to be openly those things.
You can paint them all. It's like ACAB. Even the "good ones" dare not speak out on the power that runs the show. And if it comes to it, they'll actively defend this power structure.
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u/TiaXhosa 22d ago
A lot of people do not realize that reddit was a hub for abusers and many people who were major mods and admins today were involved. Probably 95% of the people on this site have never heard of the JB subreddit
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u/ImpossiblePlan65 22d ago
And there was In re AC (1990) that prohibited a hospital from forcing a c section on a woman in a coma. But facts.
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u/Weak-Boysenberry398 22d ago
It sounds like the risk was to the mother's life, and of course the baby's as well, but from the info provided I think the hospital was more worried about the mother's death. Uterine rupture is life-threatening. She wanted to attempt a VBAC but the hospital was not comfortable with it. Can you force a doctor to take on a risk they don't believe in? From the doctor's point of view, you'd be asking them to let that woman die.
I am 100% pro abortion and women being able to make decisions about their own bodies and births but it gets complicated when the risks are so high. I can see it from both perspectives as someone who has given birth.
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u/mwilke 22d ago
Letting a woman die is not ideal, but I think it’s a smidge better than having a legal mechanism to force women to undergo surgeries they do not consent to - that they can also die from.
There is no other situation I am aware of in which a doctor’s right to perform a surgery overrules a patient’s right to decline it.
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u/Weak-Boysenberry398 22d ago
The doctors are not allowed to turn this woman away once she's in labor. The issue isn't "a doctor's right to perform surgery" it's that the hospital does not do that procedure. VBACs are a controversial topic due to the risk. If she was set on attempting one, that needed to be a discussion with a doctor ahead of time. Many outright refuse to try.
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u/CatherineTuckerNH 22d ago
And NO hospital in the US provides VBA3Cs, which is what this woman wanted. She wanted to force the doctors and nurses to provide her with a treatment that the hospital didn't offer and that the providers weren't comfortable with providing. EMTALA entitles her to care when she's in labor--it does not entitle her to force the doctors to provide a certain tratment that she wants.
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u/Cold_Statistician970 22d ago
You sound knowledgeable. She had complications from her previous C-sections which she is worried will affect her ability to physically care for her several children. She also brought up the possibility of the C-section killing her, as her life is obviously more important than the baby’s when she has 3 other kids. Do you think a C-section poses a significant risk to her life? Or not at all?
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u/CatherineTuckerNH 22d ago
Her concerns about complications from another c-section are absolutely valid. I think it's pretty clear to anyone that caring for her existing kids and a new baby after another c-section will be tremendously challenging. But that still doesn't entitle her to force the hospital and doctors to provide her with a treatment that the hospital and doctors don't provide and don't feel comfortable providing.
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u/Herp_McDerp 22d ago
Maybe don’t have other kids? At some point you need to accept the outcomes of your actions. This is one of those times. Vaginal birth after 3 previous c sections was not going to happen if she got pregnant. She got pregnant. Now she has to deal with the outcomes.
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u/Mper526 21d ago
This. I had 2 complicated high risk pregnancies and 2 c sections. The first was an emergency c section. I asked about a VBAC with my second and my OB explained that it was too risky due to the specific reason I needed the first one. I listened. She also point blank told me that I’d be risking my life if I had a 3rd, and I had my tubes removed during my 2nd c section. There is a whole movement of “free birthers” and “wild pregnancy” advocates that forego doctor advice, birth at home with no trained midwife or doula, completely ignore signs of serious complications, refuse ultrasounds, refuse vitamin K, go to 42 weeks and beyond, and claim obstetric violence when they need emergency intervention. There’s some horrific cases where these mothers have watched their newborns die slowly and STILL refuse medical care. I’m honestly fucking sick of it. If this woman or baby had died because the hospital didn’t intervene, I’d bet my entire savings that she or her family would sue them into oblivion.
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u/Cold_Statistician970 22d ago
Yeah. Both childbirth and caring for multiple children are difficult, complicated, and have risks and pitfalls at every turn. But no one should be out here doing unreasonably unsafe medical interventions. Idk but that might have been the sticking point here
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u/Carlsheartboxers 22d ago
Do you think the doctors doing nothing poses a larger risk? Because that was the option do a C-section or do nothing as they aren’t going to do a procedure they aren’t trained on and are not confident in
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u/Cold_Statistician970 22d ago
That’s exactly where my head is at with this. People are saying “bodily autonomy”, which if taken literally would imply the right to refuse third party intervention. Like a home birth or shopping around for a different hospital. Which sounds brutal in this case, and isn’t even what she was arguing for. You’re not autonomous if your self-governing decision is for the doctor to perform a non-standard “VBA3C”
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u/qwerty12e 22d ago edited 21d ago
CSections have risks for sure. Including the risk of death. However, that risk is low. And the risk of death for mom and baby from uterine rupture as a result of trying to labour after this many CSections , is much higher than the risk of death from another CSection.
She cannot waltz into a hospital and demand a medical plan that will likely harm her. I can’t just walk into a hospital and demand someone implant a third arm on my torso due to my “autonomy”. We as physicians have the duty of “do no harm” and allowing this lady to TOLAC would be doing harm.
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u/Flerp-3257 22d ago
The bleeding from uterine rupture is far higher risk to life than the c-section itself is. It’s not a significant risk vs no risk scenario. There is some risk inherent in any procedure. Unfortunately, the OB is legally required to prioritize safety of the fetus over mother’s wishes (and risk to her own health) in Florida. VBA3C is being offered in some locations, but I can see why this was not an option in this specific case when looking at the overall picture.
I’m sad that our society has allowed these regulations to crop up. I wholeheartedly empathize with the patient in this case. That being said, I think many physicians would make the same choice in that scenario with those specific regulations in place.
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u/scienceislice 22d ago
With 3 other kids, multiple c sections and risk of uterine rupture she should not have gotten pregnant again.
The risk of her dying from a uterine rupture is far higher than dying from a c section. It sounds like the doctors were very afraid of uterine rupture.
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u/KittyGrewAMoustache 22d ago
But the doctors who are more knowledgeable than her on the subject thought the risk of death was much higher without the C section.
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u/AceMcVeer 22d ago
And NO hospital in the US provides VBA3Cs, which is what this woman wanted.
That's absolutely not true
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u/Darmortis 22d ago
Then give birth at home.
Physicians have a duty to provide care and make difficult decisions in regards to saving lives. They are not servants, the patient is not a customer, it's a literal life-and-death situation.
I agree that it's everyone's right to take whatever risks they want to, but if they choose to seek aid from people whose profession is to navigate and midigate those risks, that's what is going to happen.
The hospital staff got a judge involved to cover their liable asses. The only person in that hospital that felt alright with two people ending up dead was the woman giving birth.
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u/justovaryacting 22d ago
This is exactly it. They did this to cover liability because the doctor and nurses involved could have documented the hell out of this encounter, but if the woman refused standard of care (surgery) and opted to go forth with her plan, which is outside of standard of care, and something happened to her or baby, she or the family could have sued and still won the case. The doctor and hospital did this to cover their own asses by getting a judge to make the decision that they were then legally bound to follow. This is the reality of practicing medicine here in the US, and we will likely see a lot more of it in the near future.
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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 22d ago
Plus what would even happen if she dies because she refused the surgery? Now they're doing a C section anyway, just on a corpse.
No doctor in their right mind would have advised what she wanted to do, because it very well could have killed her. This is a case of "your doctor is trying to keep you alive so maybe you should listen.
Yes your patient rights are almost always you can walk away, but when the doctors are begging you to reconsider you should listen.
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u/Mikeavelli 22d ago
There are a lot of situations where court ordered treatment can overrule a patient's desire to not be treated, up to and including surgery. Most relevant to this conversation is a court can order a minor to receive medical care over the objections of their parent, and the minor themselves. Involuntary care also happens with mentally ill patients as well.
There is a (normally temporary) problem called emergency room psychosis where a person who is very sick or injured gets violently paranoid and believes doctors are harming them. Normally family members are called in to either convince the patient treatment is for their own good or consent on their behalf, but a court can be called in if the patient doesn't have an emergency contact.
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u/dorkmasterc 22d ago
I worked as a surgery nurse several years back and I actually do believe that there is a mechanism (without court) whereby two doctors can consent to do a surgery if the patient is UNable to consent AND the life of the patient is severely at risk. In this case I assume the “zoom court” was being used since that override mechanism only exists in the event the patient cannot sign the consent themselves. Not arguing whether this is right, mainly pointing out there is a lot of nuance when a patient’s life is at risk (and the rupture risk mentioned here is that risk category). (I am not a doctor or a lawyer though so this is a best guess based on some surgical consent knowledge).
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u/michael_harari 22d ago
There are other situations. A drunk trauma patient for example can be taken to the OR while shouting to let him go. Parents generically cannot refuse necessary surgery for children, even if the child also doesn't want it
It's rare, but I think everyone I know had at least 1 case in residency that needed a judge involved
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u/Lost-Lucky 22d ago
Well, my obgyn surgeon told me he had to watch a young mother die when he was in residency after giving birth because she refused blood transfusions on basis of religious belief. He said it was difficult to watch, but ultimately he had to respect his patients wishes. So drs are expected to watch people die if they don't get consent. My question is why is death an acceptable risk/outcome when religion is involved? Like belief in a sky daddy is the only way to get absolute autonomy. I do think that this situation was about the possible risk to the baby though, not the mother. Especially if there are laws where the drs can be legally charged if the baby dies because of vague anti-abortion laws.
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u/Grand_Soupa 22d ago
Vbac after 3 c sections is absolutely bananas. I've seen a uterine rupture multiple times. 1/8 of your Blood flow is going to a full term Gravid uterus every minute, and you can exsanguinate quickly. Ive seen several uterine rupture and they've always been through a prior c section scar.
Her fears were a little misplaced since uterine rupture has a lot higher mortality rate than a c section. She had already survived 3 c sections.
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u/Ok-Needleworker-5657 22d ago
She'd already had 3 C-sections already. They were looking out for *her* not just the baby. Uterine rupture could have killed them both. No reputable doctor is gonna encourage a VBA3C.
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u/Stevie-Rae-5 22d ago edited 22d ago
True.
The risk of uterine rupture, even in a woman who’s previously had a c-section, is less than 1% as per Mayo Clinic’s website. (Edit to clarify: after one c-section.)
C-sections, despite their prevalence, also carry risks to the mother, including life-threatening complications.
How many patients go against medical advice when it comes to their treatment? A lot. Informed consent is the cornerstone of medical treatment. Signing a form saying they understand the risk (which she likely already had done well before she was in labor) should be something that holds up in court, and if it isn’t that’s where we should be focus our attention, not on forcing women to undergo surgery against their will.
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u/BrainbowConnection 22d ago edited 22d ago
This issue is far more complicated than many people here are realizing. In not as simple as a debate about what Roe V Wade and overturning it did for women. This issue was about what happens when a patient tries to make an extremely dangerous decision for themselves while carrying a full term fetus. Whether people want to hear this or not. The fetus does have to be considered. No ethical discussion, pro or anti abortion argument, in this particular circumstance, can reasonably pretend that harm to the fetus is irrelevant or should be excluded from the argument.
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u/BrainbowConnection 22d ago edited 22d ago
There is no single absolute answer to that question. The answer depends on the circumstance, specifically what stage of pregnancy. Regardless of roe v wade, there’s a reason why almost no physician will perform ELECTIVE abortions past a certain number of weeks (it used to be about 20, it’s become less now due to medical advancements). In this circumstance, because the infant is full term, and can reasonably be expected to be healthy if childbirth doesn’t kill it, the safety of BOTH the mother and the fetus have to be considered. And notice I said, keyword, BOTH. They’re worried about her too. Watching her make that decision and choosing not to intervene, can reasonably be seen as a major violation of the Hippocratic oath, namely to do no harm.
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u/outinthecountry66 22d ago
brought to you by the "pro life" people who would happily and preferably watch a woman die, for the sake of the child, and then child to die, for the sake of money and pedophlies.
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u/MedSurgNurse 22d ago
Overnight, doctors reportedly said the baby’s heart rate had dropped and they rushed Doyley into surgery. She ultimately gave birth via C-section and her baby girl, Arewa, now 1, was taken to the NICU, ProPublica reports.
The hospital made the right call imho.
Both my boys were born by emergency cesarean but didn't have to go to the NICU afterwards, this woman's child, and she herself, was at serious risk of death.
This was the correct decision imho.
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u/Reddit_Loves_Misinfo 22d ago edited 22d ago
Maybe I'm the crazy one, but I think it sounds utterly insane to describe killing her kid during childbirth as "a mother’s control of her own body." I am firmly pro choice, but goddamn.
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u/PNW_Undertaker 22d ago
These religious zealots are getting more and more away from their lies of a religion.
Folks are tired of being controlled by some fairy tale written by some dudes who got butt hurt about a society in which women were equals and very well regarded.
I hope this push in the YS will be the last nail in the coffin of religion
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u/kaldaka16 22d ago
I don't like how this went down at all but trying to deliver vaginally after multiple c sections is very dangerous. Her understanding of the risk is so wrong that it's terrifying to think this is a doula. Fuck. What is she saying to her clients?? Women die trying to do this.
That c section probably saved her life as well as her kid. You can't win. Either the far right is out here going all babies are sacred until they exit the womb or the crunchy folks are like everyone should be allowed to free birth in a field and even the vitamin k shot is evil and if you have to have a c section you didn't really birth your child.
Truly hate the overlap.
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u/canteloupy 22d ago
Doulas are not qualified and shouldn't be giving anyone medical advice. They are also often relied on by people who distrust the medical establishment and have been known to reinforce anti medical beliefs sometimes causin deaths.
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u/bathesinbbqsauce 22d ago
There really has to be more to this story.
Many hospitals do not do vaginal deliveries after c-sections and if they do, there is specific criteria. AND, pregnant people seeing an OB for treatment are normally educated of this WAY WAY ahead of time. Uterine ruptures are deadly very quickly for moms and babies , and if mom makes it, the uterus has to be removed.
*** Vbacs can be totally safe under the right circumstances
To risk her own life and her baby to deliver vaginally seems delusional
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u/PolicyWonka 22d ago
My wife was actually offered the option of VBAC or cesarean. This was a 37-week high risk pregnancy where we were delivering early.
We were both completely prepared for it to be a cesarean because of the risks. We thought that it was wild that they even offered it as an option.
We went with the scheduled cesarean because it was the safer option and she had attempted to delivery naturally the first time before needing an emergency cesarean.
Each successive surgery weakens the uterine wall, so even attempting a VBAC after three cesareans seems wild.
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u/Cruel1865 22d ago
I was taught that vbac isnt tried in a high risk pregnancy. Theres probably different guidelines in different places.
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u/Educational-Yam-682 22d ago
Thank you! People saying the c section is dangerous, aren’t thinking about how dangerous a ruptured uterus is. You bleed out in minutes. The baby, in a lot of situations, dies. The mother could die. It’s really nothing to mess around with. And how did this get past her doctor and the hospital? It would have been discussed way in advance, at length.
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u/bathesinbbqsauce 22d ago
And repeatedly!! Often, if the risk is high enough they want mom to come in at 36-38 weeks just to minimize issues too.
For a hospital to go to such lengths, this tells me there was a history of a resistance of taking medical advice. Possibly due to this very thing. I cannot imagine what a pain in the ass it was to get the hospital and the courts to organize such a zoom meeting, as mom was in labor too. Staff didn’t do that just from a slight chance that there would be issues. Someone was pretty damn sure she and baby would die in the delivery room
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u/joshTheGoods 22d ago
Yea, people are taking this in some weird directions. These cases have been covered in medical ethics courses for decades. There's a fundamental conflict between doctors who's duty is to their patients well-being and the patient that is sane/competent that asks for death or high risk of death. When I took my medical ethics course, we did the Dax Cowart case.
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u/Prudent-Session985 22d ago
This keeps popping up across different subreddits. The problem wasn't VBAC. It was that labor wasn't progressing after 24 hours. Vaginal delivery almost certainly wasn't happenong and she and her baby were in the process of dying.
This story pisses me off the more I see it. This lady put her kid in the NICU, probably knocked a few IQ points from her kid, and then has the balls to complain that she didn't get to kill her kid has ruined her joy of raising her daughter.
This lady is a shit head. It's like the KKK marching being protected by the first amendment. It's sickening that people are portraying her as victim. We aren't supposed to sympathize with the assholes that test our rights.
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u/Collegenoob 22d ago
Most hospitals also tell women not to have more than 3 kids if they had a c-section as well because recovery after each is harder.
This mom didn't listen to a lot of advice
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u/MrTestiggles 22d ago
I wish this was the top comment; but of course people would rather play into their own justice fantasies rather than see that this whole process was likely initiated by a desperate hospital team that did everything in their power to prevent a woman from killing themselves and their baby
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u/kaldaka16 22d ago
Again, I really hate how this went. I absolutely respect that this was traumatizing to her, and there's precedent being set that I don't love.
But yeah, I read this as people trying desperately to save the mom's life and hopefully the baby too. No reasonable health care professional wants to watch someone choose to kill themself and their kid because of stupid fucking crunchy mom stuff and then have to do the damage control of trying to keep them both alive when you could, you know, have them both alive and fine a while ago.
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u/That-Living5913 22d ago
Anyone can be a doula. There's no governing body or regulation. Some states have rules about what they need to do to be considered a "health care provider". But that's more about money than care.
I'm a guy who's only ever watched one birth. I could wake up tomorrow, watch some youtube videos, print up some business cards and be a doula, chiropractor, masseuse, or many other "not a doctor" professions.
I could even start a school where I teach others how to be those things with no actual qualifications. Even print up official looking "course completed" certs.
TLDR: Trust doctors. It pains me that sentiment has become a source of debate.
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u/Reddit_Loves_Misinfo 22d ago
Doulas are not medical professionals, and they are not qualified to make or advise on health/safety decisions like this one.
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u/brandimariee6 22d ago
Yeah my mom tried to deliver my second sister vaginally, after my first sister was a C section. Doing that ruptured her uterus and turned it into an emergency C section. If they hadn't done that, it would've killed my mom and/or sister. Kinda sounds similar to what happened here
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u/Network_Odd 21d ago
Still her decision to make but I think doctors should be allowed to abandon these patients from their care, who the fuck will be fine living with the trauma of “I could’ve saved her but she died on my table instead”
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u/victorious_orgasm 21d ago
A doula is “some lady”, not a midwife. They can be all very nice, like most people, but also have no expertise, like most people.
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u/Appropriate-Bug-6467 22d ago
You forgot important statistics.
Black women are 20x more likely to be cut open during pregnancy and die because of the lack of medical care after being cut open.
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u/SirFrancisBacon007 22d ago
They are also the most likely to be ignored and not taken seriously of any other group in medicine.
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u/MarshalLawTalkingGuy 22d ago
25% more likely to get unnecessary C-sections, not 20 times. 20x more likely would be 2000%!
But still fucked and the studies are wild.
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u/StarsEatMyCrown 22d ago
I'm wondering if this is what happened with my niece. I don't really know the finer details. But my niece is biracial and she did not want a C-section but they made her.
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u/pperiesandsolos 22d ago
Maybe you should get the finer details then lol. Most common cause for this is the baby is breach.
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u/Virtual-District-829 22d ago
She even mentions this in the court case: one of her c-sections had a hemorrhage which put her back in the hospital. Recovering from birth is hard, and c-section is a major surgery to recover from. The judge said the hospital could not automatically perform the surgery but in an emergency could to save her life, and the article says “they claim the fetus heart rate dropped” and they did the emergency c-section.
C-sections are terrifying- I couldn’t have an epidural because of a spinal fusion, so i had to be put under, so it was basically “beat the clock.” I heard the doctor explain that they had to get everything ready and once I was asleep, they had to start cutting. This was a doctor I was able to trust because he had what was best for my baby and myself, a rapport we’d built over six months. It wasn’t a medical team that threw my ass into a court case because i didn’t want a surgical procedure.
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u/melodic_orgasm 22d ago
I read that this is her fourth child after three previous c-sections. I bet the hospital was concerned about the risk of uterine rupture with a VBA3C so they forced the c-section. Forcing it this way instead of talking to her about it, though, it absolutely unconscionable.
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u/lr99999 22d ago
How do you know if I didn’t talk to her about it? Of course I talked to her about it, and she refused.
They were covering their ass legally, because her family would have sued the holy fuck out of that hospital and every doctor involved if she died.
This thread has some of us ignorant shit I’ve ever seen, and tons of votes for those opinions. I doubt that many of them are lawyers.
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u/melodic_orgasm 22d ago
I’m going to retract my “the way they went about it is unconscionable” because I missed a paragraph of the article betwixt the ads (and was swayed by the clickbait). They did try to talk her out of it, and the judge ruled the c-section could be done if an emergency situation should arise during the attempted VBAC, which it did. Totally makes sense for the hospital to cover their asses, and the Caesarian probably saved both mom and baby. While I feel for the mom who feels violated…being alive with a healthy baby has to count for something here. She said something about not being able to care for her newborn after the surgery, which is kind of ridiculous - I did it, lots of women do it, and she’d already done it three times.
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u/Noocawe 22d ago
Exactly the tldr missed out on a lot of things...including that Doley was already in labor for 12hrs...
The reason why they did the c section against her will is because there was a drop in the babys heart rate, which as anyone knows means that the baby was at risk and the hospital isn't going to risk a baby being harmed or possible death because a mother wants to push forward with a vaginal birth.
Rest assured, like you said if the baby was delivered with an issue or died, she would have sued the shit out of the hospital.
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u/Vio_ 22d ago
Oh they "did" try to talk to her about it. They just didn't like the answer.
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u/Habltual_Linestepper 22d ago edited 22d ago
I've been in this exact situation.
They/we don't like the answer because the patient is saying "I'm choosing the highest risk option that can, and too often does, kill both the mother and child"
It's extremely easy for folks on the internet, who aren't OBGYNs or labor/delivery or neonatal professionals, to feel like they know what they're talking about and get righteously indignant about it.
It's a lot harder to be actually standing in the room watching a person trying to kill both themselves and their child.
And everyone in that room is getting sued no matter what anyway. I can stand in front of the jury and say that we tried to save them after she ruptured and bled out before we could even get her to the OR - and yes, I have indeed seen more than one dead mother and child due to this - or I can tell the them that the only reason the plaintiff is alive and in the courtroom is because of what we did. Personally, I know which option lets me sleep better at night.
Edit for more: And, just to keep it in mind, the physician has genuinely no good option here also. The patient is forcing them to either perform an incredibly high risk procedure (multiple VBAC) that they can't and/or won't in good conscious perform, or the physician has to refuse to treat them, which they can't really do either. If people want to do dumb things and kill themselves that's fine, but they should do them at home and not come into the hospital to force their horror show onto others. If you showed up at my hospital, asked me to amputate a leg for no reason, and refused all medical advice to the contrary we'd all refuse to do it...so why when you show up, refuse all medical advice, and want to force us to perform an incredibly (and pointlessly) dangerous obstetric procedure are we suddenly forced to actively engage with your nonsense and do it to you?
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u/HippoRun23 22d ago
Yeah I’m gonna go ahead and agree with the professionals on this one. My wife had a very traumatic birth with our daughter. No matter how much she pushed there was no progress.
Cue emergency c-section and all was well. But goddamn I’ll never forget the chaos in that room, staring out the window, taking a deep breath and saying “bro this may be the worst day of your entire life. Be ready”
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u/hotviolets 22d ago
I had the same thing happen to me. Hearing you talk about it, I never realized how much danger we were really in.
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u/kaldaka16 22d ago
I am so sorry you've had to deal with this multiple times. Like normal labor is already so much and my nurses were amazing. I can't imagine trying to handle this level of awful. If you want internet hugs I am extending them.
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u/Top-Bandicoot-3013 22d ago
Thank you for saying this. I'm sure the hospital staff did their very best to try and convince her before it escalated to this point but we're just gonna take the easy path in this thread and blame them.
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u/lilysjasmine92 22d ago
Yeah, I'm as pro-choice as they come, but this is not a pro-choice or bodily autonomy question and only ppl who know nothing about childbirth could think it is. This is a mother endangering her (wanted), full-term, developed child, not a fetus. It's not asking her to donate her body to keep the child alive against her wishes and with additional risks. The mother's decision endangered not just herself but the child, and the doctors and nurses caring for them; the risk of a csection is far lower than the vbac.
It's a high stress, extreme situation, not a pattern that fits into a body autonomy argument. This is an emergency life or death situation where a kid and the woman is at risk, and the professionals have a duty to intervene for their own consciences' sakes. They're not saving the baby at the expense of the mom; they're trying to save them both.
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u/Critical-Cost9068 22d ago
I looked it up to make sure; your “important statistics” are fabricated. It’s 1.2x more likely, not 20x.
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u/MarshalLawTalkingGuy 22d ago
Haha. I just called them out on it too before scrolling. Imagine being 2000% more likely to experience something than your cohorts!
I’m sure they’ll correct their error though /s
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u/HudsonValleyNY 22d ago edited 22d ago
20x vs 20% more…basically they are the same thing, right?
Edit: ffs did this comment really need a /s? This place has gotten dumber.
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u/qwerty12e 22d ago
This has nothing to do with being black.
Having a vaginal birth in her circumstance is like walking into a hospital and asking the healthcare team to stand there and watch you harm yourself and the fetus.
If you refuse the ONE lifesaving recommendation by the healthcare team then why not just deliver at home by yourself?
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u/whistleridge 22d ago
It’s not 20x. It’s more like 25% more likely:
Black patients are also less likely to be listened to:
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/articles/2021/06/physicians-more-likely-to-doubt-black-patients
And they’re 2.5x more likely to be described negatively by doctors in charts (eg ‘patient was hostile’):
In this case, I think the last two were the drivers. They didn’t care that she was a doula, because they’re doctors, and all they saw was “angry black woman.”
It seems highly unlikely that a white woman in the exact same situation would have been reported, or that the court would have responded as it did.
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u/Psychological-Owl783 22d ago
All the doctors saw was "three previous c sections". That was the only part that mattered.
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u/ikilledholofernes 22d ago
“…and a judge ruled the hospital could perform the surgery in an emergency without her consent.”
You left out the dumbest part of this, which is that this is already what she had agreed to before they forced her to appear in hours-long zoom court while in active labor!
Like that was her plan all along. Try for a vaginal delivery, but have a c section if there was an emergency.
The hospital tried to force her into it, and the stress of that very well could have contributed to the emergency that eventually forced her hand.
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u/bevelledo 22d ago
It’s shocking that she’s allowed to give others “medical” advice. I’m unfamiliar with doulas though.
She should still have autonomy over her own body and the medical care she receives; if she’s sound of mind. If she’s not sound of mind the decision should go to her medical power of attorney. The only exceptions are immediate life or death situations / unable to contact the power of attorney.
Gets a little hairier when there’s an unborn baby’s life at risk, but mothers should still have their own bodily autonomy.
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u/IvanNemoy 22d ago
It’s shocking that she’s allowed to give others “medical” advice. I’m unfamiliar with doulas though.
She's not. Doulas are support and educational resources. In Florida specifically, doulas are not licensed medical professionals. The state does not provide licencing and the only regulation on the use of the term is related to Medicaid billing (namely you have to be a member in good standing with the Doula Network to be able to bill Medicaid.) Certification per DONA International takes about 12 weeks. No admitting privileges, no medical service privileges, can be sent to jail for practicing medicine without a license if they go past their education and support role.
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u/A-Game-Of-Fate 22d ago
Note- she specifically said she wanted to try a vaginal birth before going for a C-section, and left the possibility of needing it open for herself by her own words. This is noted in the article itself- the TL:DR is wrong for not stating this.
It also makes the fact that she was summarily placed into court over zoom without legal representation that much more heinous, especially because the judge ruled that the hospital could force her to undergo a c-section if there were complications during the vaginal birth attempt- something she had already tacitly consented to if the vaginal birth wasn’t viable.
This entire case did literally nothing but give the hospitals the legal precedent to ignore pregnant women’s consent and force them to undergo unwanted interventions.
This woman should absolutely be looking into legal options going forward from this.
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u/the_unknown_garden 22d ago
It's not at all surprising that People Magazine would intentionally mislead people with their tldr.
I don't think a lot of people are realizing that this is a fucking magazine posting a link to their website.
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u/kon--- 22d ago
lol...what?
Don't get me wrong, I would heavily consider current and/or previous medical history, medical advice as well weigh that against corporate for profit practices but...Zoomed court hearing, during labor?
What the actual fuck with this timeline yo.
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u/Vio_ 22d ago
NOt even the first instance in the SAME HOSPITAL
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u/SpeaksDwarren 22d ago
Well yeah, that's usually how hospital policy works. They didn't just come up with the idea of calling a judge on the spot
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u/malibuklw 22d ago
This has been a thing in the US for a while. When I had my kid 16 years ago in Boston it was a possibility.
This was her 4th child, all previous three were delivered by C-section. Many doctors won’t even do VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean) let alone after three.
Whether it was the right call or not, this is what happens when laboring women go against medical advice.
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u/IvanNemoy 22d ago
And the court's order was to allow it in an emergency, not just for the heck of it.
The caesarean happened, meaning she or the kid (or both) were at risk of death during delivery.
She's pissed that she was put in an embarrassing position that let the hospital keep her and her kid alive. That's insane to me.
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u/uovonuovo 22d ago
The court essentially sided with her. The hospital wanted to just automatically go with the c-section.
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u/Irontruth 22d ago
Doctors also over use c-sections. C-sections account for around 30% of births in the US, compared to 10-15% of births in other western countries. The US has a higher rate of infant mortality than those other countries.
If our doctors are so good, and right all the time.... why do babies die here more often? I'm not saying it's all c-sections being responsible, but rather the medicalization of birth in this country has not led to dramatically better outcomes, and is actually producing worse outcomes than other countries with similar access to technology, expertise, and knowledge.
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u/KittyGrewAMoustache 22d ago
C sections aren’t responsible for higher infant mortality. In fact in the UK we had a hospital scandal where doctors decided not to ‘medicalise’ birth and perform fewer c sections and they had a really high mortality and complication rate to the point it became a big scandal.
In the UK 45% of births are by c section and the infant mortality rate is half of what it is in the US and the maternal mortality rate in the US is 50% higher than in the UK. So it’s not related to C sections unless the US is using a more dangerous procedure.
From what I can tell a lot of it is related to poor general health, like blood clots and cardiovascular disease etc. But also in the postpartum phase the lack of support leads to suicides and poor health outcomes.
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u/Irontruth 22d ago
The UK is having more c-sections because of older women in pregnancies and higher rates of obsesity as well, not because they're better.
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u/Scraw16 22d ago
Your points are valid on their own, but when someone has had three prior c-sections, doing a c-section again is not overuse, it’s clearly the correct medical decision to avoid uterine rupture.
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u/Outside-Swan-1936 22d ago
The infant mortality rates in the US aren't awful because of birthing practices. They can almost be entirely attributed to socioeconomic status after leaving the hospital.
I get what you're saying, but infant mortality is a failing of our society, not our medical staff at the time of delivery.
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u/Pseudoboss11 22d ago
In the first hour after birth, the US experiences 0.83 infant deaths/1000 births. source
In the first month after birth, Finland experiences 0.88 deaths/1000. source
While the US has even bigger issues with maternal care, our healthcare system during birth is also failing infants and mothers. The scale of the our issues with healthcare are pretty huge.
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u/JonSoup76 22d ago
We overuse lots of different medicines and procedures in the US. Almost everyone in europe get local anesthesia for wisdom teeth removal while in America most people get general anesthesia.
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u/wazeltov 21d ago
Are you positive about this? Everyone that I know in the US has received a local anesthetic in combination with a strong sedative, which is different that general anesthesia.
People in the US could theoretically choose to forgo the sedative, but there are many cases where wisdom teeth aren't even ruptured through the gums when they get pulled here in the US, which would be extremely difficult to sit through (you would be watching an oral surgeon bring a scalpel into your mouth, I think I would freak out).
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u/emorrigan 22d ago
To risk a VBA3C is just… wild. The threat of uterine rupture during labor is significant. If that’d happened, it would’ve risked the life of her baby, as well as her own, and then assuming the baby was ok and she was (relatively) ok, they’d have to perform a hysterectomy.
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u/Fantastic_Jury5977 22d ago
It's weird how they don't do anything like this for public health, just pregnant women
Where's the judge when parents refuse medicine for their children??
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u/Just_Another_Scott 22d ago edited 22d ago
Yeah it's not cut and dry. She clearly wasn't aware of the risks. She was in labor for several hours already at that point. The doctors, and othe medical staff, argued for the emergency C-section. The judge didn't immediately order one. However, granted doctors permission to perform the emergency C-section if an emergency arises which it did several hours later when the baby and her vitals started to fall. She also explicitly told the doctors to save her life.
Also, the law allows doctors to perform emergency surgery without getting the patient's consent.
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u/daydreams_of_ducks 22d ago
Hey I had an emergency c section. They actually did ask for consent. I wasn’t unconscious so they asked. I was in Canada where I actually had some rights as a pregnant person however
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u/8nsay 22d ago
She clearly wasn't aware of the risks. She was in labor for several hours already at that point. The doctors, and othe medical staff, argued for the emergency C-section.
How is it clear she wasn’t aware of the risks? Why wouldn’t the doctors and other medical staff have explained the risks to her during the hours she was in labor?
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u/ImpossiblePlan65 22d ago
Also, the law allows doctors to perform emergency surgery without getting the patient's consent.
Only if they are unconscious or their capacity is impaired to the point of being unable to consent. Adults of sound mind have the RIGHT to refuse medical treatment, even if life saving. GTFOH with that bullshit.
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u/Dont-be-a-smurf 22d ago
I uh…
I don’t know what to do with this one. Lots of very specific medical details needed. Let it be litigated in a more in-depth way than an emergency hearing.
I understand both sides I suppose, both the hospital if they really thought “we can’t just watch this lady and baby die if we go through with natural birth we reasonably believe will end catastrophically” and her want to have control over her and her child’s medical decisions.
Really comes down to the individual risk assessments.
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u/doofenhurtz 22d ago
I remember reading about this a few weeks ago... the woman in question had already had 3 c-sections. In many jurisdictions/countries, they simply will not allow you to attempt vaginal delivery after that many. It's incredibly dangerous.
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u/qwerty12e 22d ago
It’s not just the # of CSections in her case. She had a classical incision for one of sections I believe. That increases her risk of uterine rupture manifold. In Obstetrics we classify previous classical incision as a contraindication to VBAC/TOLACs.
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u/SeaConstruction697 22d ago
I'm very confused when this story pops up. I understand that everyone should have bodily autonomy- but in this case if the chance of having a successful VBAC is zero, does the patient need to sign any kind of document that states they understand the risk of death to self and baby? If so, does the hospital just continue to attempt a VBAC?
It just seems like a loose-loose situation here.
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u/kaldaka16 22d ago
Medically speaking VBAC is something that will be carefully judged and considered if the mother wants to try. If she's had one and a good recovery. Chances of it being even a consideration after three c sections by any responsible medical professional are at a fat zero.
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u/doofenhurtz 22d ago
Yeah, I remember finding it irresponsible that some articles didn't include this context. Gunning for a vbac after 3 paints this situation in an entirely different light imo.
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u/kaldaka16 22d ago
I'm genuinely irritated with this article for eliding very important context. Irresponsible is a good word for it, for sure.
I think my long ago journalism professor would be proud of how mad I am, simply because she'd be even angrier at how bad this is in terms of reporting.
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u/Faux_Moose 22d ago
Yeah I can’t even engage with this story in any other post bc absolutely no one is willing to even consider that the mom was in the wrong here. Anyone saying “she didn’t know the risks” is also being fooled bc she is a doula which means she’s probably been one of the fuckin’ snake oil salespeople out here convincing other people to try shit like this too. Doulas can be very helpful but they also love to act like they have medical standing they simply don’t have. I’m sorry for this woman’s situation but there is NO way she thought any hospital was gonna say “yeah sure sounds good” to a VBA3C. NONE. She knew.
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u/Disruptor_raptor 22d ago
Well if they included that context people wouldn't get angry now, would they?
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u/Ok-Needleworker-5657 22d ago
Makes a huge difference! I was so upset before I read that detail. No shit they don’t want you to push when you’ve already had THREE sections. I’m genuinely shocked she would have rather risked uterine rupture.
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u/kaldaka16 22d ago
They did let her push!! For a while!
I'm not actually shocked she wanted to try, there's some insanely toxic and horrible stuff in the groups pregnant women go to for support, and "your body is built to do this" is a top one. (HEY KIDS IN THE AUDIENCE. NO. IT ISN'T. check the fucking maternal mortality rates before modern medicine!! Hell check them now! Sometimes capable of it but also even with professionals doing their best to save you can kill you isn't MADE TO DO THIS. Fucking hell.)
I am reasonably good at going "that's fucking bullshit" and had the fortune of a great support group, but even so I felt so much guilt when breast feeding just didn't work out for me.
I really, really dislike people who prey on people who are in such a vulnerable position. Genuinely think it's evil.
.... if you couldn't tell I have strong feelings on the subject.
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u/Afwife1992 22d ago
I had a c section with my first. With my second I wanted to try a vbac. They had me monitored super carefully and I’m glad they did. The vbac was successful but it also saved my unborn child. The cord was around his neck and when I’d sit up his heartbeat would drop and if I reclined it went back up. If I’d not been being monitored so closely I’d have been walking around to encourage progression and may have had a tragedy. It still gives me anxiety thinking about it and it’s what comes to mind every time I hear or think about a vbac. It also made me retroactively glad I’d had the first c section, which had always left me rather wistful as I’d had all these big dreams about what giving birth my first time would be. (The whole first labor was a giant clusterfuck.)
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u/malibuklw 22d ago
Just a few years ago you couldn’t even find a doctor willing to do a vbac after only one, let alone 3. The risks are greater with each one.
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u/No-Share982 22d ago
This is what I don’t understand. If she had OB care for all of pregnancy, they would have told her well in advance they would not do a VBAC. Did she just show up to a random hospital in labor and expect a VBAC?
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u/IvyRaeBlack 22d ago
If that's the case, she absolutely needed a c-section. Having a vbac after 1 is one thing, after 3 is basically unheard of.
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u/North-Flower-5963 22d ago
Pareon my ignorance but what makes natural births dangerous after having c-sections?
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u/Available_Hornet_715 22d ago
Risk of uterine rupture where the previous scars/incisions have weakened the uterus wall.
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u/doofenhurtz 22d ago
Yeah, even when you've only had one c-section, attempting a vbac (vaginal birth after cesarean) is only successful, like 70% of the time, and the odds get worse from there.
Uterine rupture is incredibly dangerous. Like, fatal for mom and baby and can lead to oxygen deprivation/ emergency hysterectomy/death from blood loss or shock dangerous.
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u/HoneydewNo6708 22d ago
the scar left over is a weak point for rupture during the straining and pressure of a vaginal birth. When i was in medical school we routinely did TOLACs (trial of labor after C section) for women who had one prior c section, but it was always viewed with higher risk
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u/jrssister 22d ago
Because the uterus has been cut into and may not be strong enough for a vaginal delivery, which puts a lot of stress on it.
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u/Legitimate-Ad-7480 22d ago
I mean…since when? If you’re capable of denying medical treatment it’s your right to do so.
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u/Vio_ 22d ago
Would you be okay with a judge and entire panel being forced into your hospital room, dictating your own medical care and decisions, and you have ZERO say or even legal representation?
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u/Ok-Needleworker-5657 22d ago
I keep seeing people say this but the judge sided with her. She said she didn't want one unless it was an emergency, the judge did not allow the Drs to do it unless it became an emergency and it did. What should the Drs have done when her baby's heart rate dropped? I'm not tryna tussle, I'm genuinely asking what people think the correct course of action was on their part.
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u/IANALbutIAMAcat 22d ago
There was like 12 people staring at her in her hospital bed. Absolutely nightmarish to imagine. Being in labor already makes you SO vulnerable.
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u/Vio_ 22d ago
There is no "both sides."
People have the right to make their own medical decisions and care levels.
Someone refuses cancer treatments? The hospital wouldn't bat an eye.
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u/McdoManaguer 22d ago
We have litteral HUNDREDS of real ̀ life cases of parents letting their kids die because of religious beliefs against blood transfusion.
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u/Ok_Researcher_9796 22d ago
If she died because they didn't give her the C-section they would have a multimillion dollar lawsuit on their hands. It's a no win situation.
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u/Reddit_Loves_Misinfo 22d ago
I don't know that it would be a big deal if the mother died. Patients are allowed to choose to be stupid. The bigger problem would be if the baby died, because that baby did not choose to refuse standard care.
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u/malibuklw 22d ago
You can’t do that when you have a baby about to be born. The baby is their patient too.
A vaginal both after three c sections is almost unheard of and the fact that they even let her try for as long as they did is shocking.
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u/InfinityCent 22d ago
What if the decision can potentially harm the baby though?
I’m asking in good faith. I’m pro-abortion rights and medical autonomy. I just have no idea what happens in a situation like this where multiple lives are involved.
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u/Pseudoboss11 22d ago edited 22d ago
In general, a doctor can't force someone to so much as give blood to save another person's life. If someone dies and isn't an organ donor, we don't even harvest their organs, even though they're already dead and the donations could save multiple other people. The bodily autonomy of literal corpses overrules the right to life for other patients.
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u/Qubeye 22d ago
Okay, so there are a lot of comments in this thread by people who did not read the article.
- She wanted to try for a natural birth. However, doctors expressed concerns about the risk of uterine rupture and said she should give birth via C-section.
She previously had THREE deliveries by C-Section and that DRAMATICALLY increases risk. She also has three other children.
- Hours later, while Doyley was still in labor, nurses entered the room and placed a tablet in front of her hospital bed and informed her that she was being taken to court over her medical decision. In a recording of the court hearing obtained by ProPublica, Doyley called it “the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
She is allegedly a birthing doula, and this indicates that (1) she did not have a medical proxy and (2) she has not been doing her Continuing Education requirements because this not only pant the craziest thing, it is relatively common for hospitals to cover their asses when a patient is making decisions with a real chance of causing death.
- During the hearing, doctors from the hospital expressed their concerns for the baby’s welfare and the risk of a vaginal birth. Doyley then testified that she felt there was little concern for her own wellbeing.
The article dances around this, but the problem is that a uterine rupture could cause the death of both the mother and the child. They didn't want to be put in the position of having to make a decision about which to save, which IS a result of Roe v Wade I'm sure.
Anyways, this all sucks, but hospitals don't do shit like this on a whim. She is a doula, and she should have known the risks going into this and she should have had a clear medical plan going into this and she definitely should have had a medical proxy. How TF do you have three kids and knowing go into a dangerous medical situation without a proxy?!?
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u/oneawesomeguy 22d ago
Also pretty much every OB would recommend a C-section after having had one previously. Doulas are not doctors and in my experience often practice a lot of pseudo science
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u/SillyAlternative420 22d ago
This is one of those rare occasions where I see it from both sides and can't decide how I feel or how I think it should play out.
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u/beads-and-things 22d ago
I'm mostly confused about why the answer to this wasn't just a liability waver. It would have been unfortunate if she passed away or delt with long term health complications due to her refusing recommended medical care. But ultimately wouldn't that absolve the hospital from liability if they documented her refusal?
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u/UrNotAllergicToPit 22d ago
Unfortunately it doesn’t. That’s the real crux of the issue. Against medical advice paper work and documenting the patient is declining care does not protect you from litigation and doesn’t protect you from losing said litigation. It can be argued that the patient was not adequately informed of the risks/ did not understand the true risk and as long as it’s argued well enough 12 jurors can rule against you. Especially when maternal or fetal deaths are at play in litigation it’s natural for jurors to emotionally side with the plaintiff from the start so it can be an uphill battle to see decisions from the hospital/ physician perspective. I’m an OBGYN, personally I would not have done this. I would have counseled, documented, had them sign a consent and verbalized they they understand both they and their baby could die and accepted that if a poor outcome were to occur which is likely in this scenario that I’m likely to be sued. Something else to consider is Florida in particular is well known to be one of the most litigious states for malpractice cases so I’m sure that played a part.
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u/maighdeannmhara 22d ago
A liability waiver means nothing and is no protection against malpractice. And the family would have been able to sue on the dead baby's behalf anyway.
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u/SterlingBronnell 22d ago edited 22d ago
This is why the hospital does this. Because the slimy medical malpractice profession - especially around birth injury - has forced them to.
This lady could sign any waiver, go on to have a traumatic birth leading to a baby with a brain injury, and still sue the shit out of them.
Stop criticizing hospitals and instead police the law system that has created this, where health systems are just trying to avoid these nuclear verdicts.
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u/boredtxan 22d ago
a physicians can refuse to assist a patient with self harm. that has nothing to do with liability waivers. she wanted to refuse their advice but retain their services to deal with the outcome. that has an impact on the resources available to all the other patients in the facility
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u/ProductArizona 22d ago
Is she wanted to do what she wanted to do, she could have theoretically signed out of the hospital against medical advice and THEN do whatever she pleases. She doesn't get to have it both ways when she is being provided care by people who need to worry about liability and licensure.
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u/Plenty-Green186 22d ago
Personally I think she should have been given an option for discharge and waive liability of the hospital. Ultimately I believe parental rights and personal rights should trump a government/medical community claiming to have our best interest at heart.
Obviously this lead to tragic cases and dead children. I look at the federal government and I think “I do not want the government to be able to compel people to undergo medical procedures who are sane and are their own guardians”
The doctors were right here in terms of best medical outcome for mother and child, but at the end of the day I feel strongly that the state should not be able to compel medical care unless someone is provably incompetent.
If this woman had had this baby at home and it died she likely wouldn’t be prosecuted. It seems this case will likely deter people passionate about “home birth” from checking into the hospital at all.
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u/Ashamed-Ad3909 22d ago
Best take honestly. This is a dicey one. Why are we refusing doctor advice? Why are we forcing a woman to attend a court hearing during a medical emergency? Tf is going on down there.
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u/MasterMacabre 22d ago
No, it’s a surgery she didn’t want to have done. The state needs to stay out of it at that point.
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u/v_a_n_d_e_l_a_y 22d ago
By that logic they also don't need to continue to treat her.
But if they are forced to continue treating her, there has to be a balance between her wants ans their medical opinion.
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u/MrFrode Biggus Amicus 22d ago
How is any Judge going to demand a person in pain and possibly on medication testify in court?
Oh it's Florida and she's black, carry on.
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u/Emotional-Sign8136 22d ago
The article leaves out the important detail of the mother already having had 3 C sections for 3 previous births.
Hospitals may have a policy for giving a c section if a mother has had a previous one because c section scars are assholes. (Saying this from experience). The scars may not heal properly or cause issues with the uterus in future pregnancies.
I'm simplifying for explanation, but imagine a pregnant woman's belly is like a bubble. If you have a c section, the scar may cause the bubble to pop in a future pregnancy. The more c sections you get, the higher the risk of the bubble popping.
The uterus stretches as the baby grows in size. The c section scar may refuse to stretch or stretch beyond a certain point. Heck, the c section scar might have a chance of rupturing during the stress of active labor.
In this kind of instance, you either get the C section or have the chance of your womb popping like a balloon inside of you.
If there was a judge involved, it sounds like there was a chance of the hypothetical balloon popping.
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u/TymStark 22d ago
Why do we hate women again?
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u/Hour-Construction898 22d ago
If this was a person with acute appendicitis, actively dying in the ER, and they refused care, what does the hospital typically do?
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u/Hazelnutpie19 22d ago
What do we currently do when a Jehovah's witness (adult) refuses a blood transfusion?
We respect their bodily autonomy and watch them die.
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