Contemplating another UP/UC, but...

[MissAnthrope]

My last baby (UP/UC) received hospital care for jaundice when he was slightly less than 1 day old, and our local L&D demanded to know who my prenatal care provider was, and when I said I did my own prenatal care, they reported us to CPS.  They claimed that it was standard procedure to report anyone and everyone "with no prenatal care" to CPS.

Obviously, our caseworker quickly figured out what happened and was hugely apologetic and wiped our records, but I am so scared that it will happen again.

We know a lot more about birth now (I'm actually nearly finished with my courses as a student midwife) and about neonatal care, and the chance we'll need the hospital again is frankly minimal to nonexistant.  But I don't want to go through that CPS nightmare again...does anyone have some idea of what we should do?

This is what I was able to brainstorm:

1.  Refuse to go to the hospital unless absolutely emergency-level necessary, for smaller questions and things that *might* mean trouble, call one of my midwifery teachers for consult.
2.  If we go to the hospital because it's a huge emergency, do not answer irrelevant questions such as who was our PCP and what's our address and stuff like that.

3.  Go to an out-of-network hospital (call around to find one without that stupid policy) in case of emergency, and suck up the cost.

4.  Lawyer up and inform local hospital via lawyer that they are not mandated to report people for not having prenatal care, cite studies showing prenatal care has no effect on pregnancy outcomes, etc. and generally intimidate them pre-emptively.

5.  If newborn care is necessary, insist to ped that it be in-home, refuse treatment for low-level jaundice citing meta-studies on the gross overexaggeration of the perils of jaundice.

6.  Inform ped pre-emptively that we believe low-level neonatal jaundice is beneficial, citing studies.

7.  Claim not to remember our PCP's name but summarize "her" findings.

[BlessedJess]

Those all sound like good ideas.

This is just one more reason hospitals and doctors are alienating people. It's insane, utterly insane and arrogant that they would do this to you. And alarming. I've thought about having a lawyer present for emergency transfers. Just because they can pull all kinds of stuff without permission, if not closely watched and held accountable for their actions. I've even read cases where there was a false report of a narcotic test on the baby coming back positive and the baby being taken temporarily or even in one case, permanently. I don't trust them at all. They really shouldn't be surprised if people boycott them...
 

Did you hear the one where a baby was taken (planned hospital birth) for over a week from a couple over a name mix up of the father? It was in the news cycle for a while a year or two ago. Probably it's best to get a public spotlight on the situation if it gets out of hand as that was the only way the couple got their baby back... they were already in the news when they found and reported evidence of sexual assault (adult pubic hair and blood in the diaper on changing)  on their new infant girl during a supervised visitation. Such is the threat from the hospital fusion centers. Just sharing the same name with someone who has an old record with CPS can become a nightmare situation. (BTW, as far as I know, the perp got away with it and the CPS favored doctor covered for him, but the negative media attention drove them to let the baby go back home) I don't know how widespread the data center sharing is, or whether private hospitals are being forced onto the same program, but we know how the confusion of the no-fly lists at airports can hamper travel, even for a 5 year old.

It's very scary to be at the mercy of a money worshiping hospital in this day and age. The antibiotic resistant bacteria, the CPS, the abusive medical workers, the pushy doctors who don't listen, the incompetence, the list of complaints could go on for a mile... I thank God I've never had to choose between human rights and lifesaving procedures. May we never need their "help."

[fayebond]

CPS can be ridiculous.  Its one of the few government insitutions I think needs to be wiped clean off the map (yes, there would be some problems from parents, but less problems overall, arguably, from displaced children and abuses of power).

I would add as a side note, if you homeschool your children, you can join a group like HSLDA, and have access to free legal advice/help re: your parental rights.  They usually always help members on CPS cases, even when not directly related to how you school the children.  I think they actually helped in a recent infant-taken-away-from-parents thing in my state (she had a false positive drug test due to eating lots of poppyseed bread the week before).  Its I think $50 a year or something like that, very cheap anyway compared to legal retainers.

www.hslda.org/

[esmicosaquehago]

All good ideas, I just want to say one thing.  You say the risk of emergency is almost "nonexistent".  I am really sorry you had a bad experience last time with bringing your babe in, but I encourage you not to let that stop you if you need to in the future.  Childbirth is a natural process, but newborns are still fragile, and you should seek the care (if in the unlikely circumstance that you need it).

[MissAnthrope]

Originally Posted by esmicosaquehago 

All good ideas, I just want to say one thing.  You say the risk of emergency is almost "nonexistent".  I am really sorry you had a bad experience last time with bringing your babe in, but I encourage you not to let that stop you if you need to in the future.  Childbirth is a natural process, but newborns are still fragile, and you should seek the care (if in the unlikely circumstance that you need it).

Oh absolutely.  But as a proven multipara with no history of birth complications and no risk factors for newborn complications, the risk is minimal.  It is in fact more minimal than it was last time, since we now know that his jaundice was probably not a big deal and have done more research on what to look for.  I also think it was a mistake to agree to a newborn exam at the ped's last time--- as a senior student midwife, I know what a newborn looks like when they're healthy and normal and can spot signs of trouble, so we should be okay putting off the first ped visit until LO is several days old, nursing well, and generally over the transitional bumps.

I do believe that for proven multiparas in good general health and with normal pregnancies, there is almost nonexistant (probably 2%-5%) risk of emergency.