There’s an elephant in the room, and it is more than the fact that stillbirth exists. It’s the fact that pregnant patients, even today, aren’t being given the proper prenatal education to understand and make the most informed choices in their care. This needs to change.
Risk factors, symptoms, diagnostic criteria, and potential impacts of one of the most common ailments in pregnancy is critical information. It’s information that could have prevented the death of my child. It’s information that prepares a preeclampsia survivor like me for potential impacts yet to come. It’s necessary information we all have a right to know.
What do you do when you disagree with someone about a subject that’s important to you? It’s important to me that parents have all information to make informed decisions in their pregnancy. People deserve information, and once they have it, their decisions should be respected.
When I was pregnant for the first time, I heard that babies come when they’re ready, and so I allowed my pregnancy to go overdue. I wish I had known this wasn’t always true.
In recent years, home dopplers have become a popular way both of connecting with your baby and of providing “reassurance” that everything is okay. Unfortunately, any reassurance provided by home dopplers is false—a fetus may have a perfectly normal heart beat, and still be in danger of dying.
We hear a lot about the power of nature and avoiding things that are heavily processed to keep ourselves safe. I think it is important to remember: What is safe is not always natural & What is natural is not always safe/
At current rates of 1 in 160 pregnancies, stillbirth is NOT rare. The fact is, you already personally know at least one person in your life who has experienced stillbirth. You likely know many.
There is a subconscious, and in some places, even overt “war” going on between midwives and physicians, and it really needs to stop. I truly believe if either set of my providers had swallowed their pride and explained that sometimes, neither nature nor medicine are completely perfect, then my son would be alive today.
A collection of five recommendations for safest pregnancy from the top organizations in prenatal care and stillbirth prevention: ACOG, CDC, Star Legacy Foundation, Stillbirth CRE, and more.
Sometimes the minutiae of life is overwhelming, and sometimes when we try to share about how it’s difficult, people get sidetracked on the details instead of the bigger picture. It’s not about the sunscreen, though; it’s so much harder than that.
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