Anyone see the tragic HB on ER last night?

[Raven67]

I will recap for those who didn't. Well, an older mom, apparently single, with no family/friend support (?), underwent fertility treatments, etc (could have been ME!) to ttc her son. She loved, longed for this baby, etc...She did a home birth. She was rushed to the hospital for failure to pass the placenta and excessive bleeding. Her midwife accompanied her. Well, nobody made any actual negative comments about the HB, but is was presented as kind of dangerous, I think. As if a problem like that could never have occured if the woman had the good sense to go to the hospital. We don't get the impression that her HB was a thoughtful, well-researched idea. The woman says, "My mother had me at home, I thought it would be good for him (baby)." She sounded kind of dippy. The midwife totally disappeared, offering no further support to mom or babe. THEN, the horrible part is it turns out the baby has some awful genetic problem, that the midwife did not diagnose. The baby ends up DYING. Now, they never really cleared up the issue of whether the baby would have died anyway, which I think he would have. But, I am afraid many viewers would be left with the impression that the baby died BECAUSE of the hippy-dippy home birth. At the very least, the message was: "See everyone, birth is a SERIOUS medical procedure, and you had BETTER NOT try this at home." I think they have doctors writing that show, right? ER is watched by millions of people thinking, "What was that crazy woman thinking, now, her baby is dead." Very sneaky, Docs.

[LiamnEmma]

There's another thread about this over on the books, music, media thread. You might want to check it out.

[Raven67]

yeah....

i saw that, and I can see some people did not find the portrayal offensive. Maybe I am too sensitive and paranoid! I think it could have been worse, but it was still anti-HB if you ask me.

[Arduinna]

Now, they never really cleared up the issue of whether the baby would have died anyway


Actually, they made it very clear (Luka did) that the baby had a genetic defect and had a max life expectancy of two years. They never even implied that a hospital birth would have changed that fact. It couldn't have anyway.

[kama'aina mama]

BUT... the midwife missed that mom was losing a lot of blood from a "retained placenta". The doc was tugging on the umbilical! Good plan if the woman is already bleeding badly, huh? They came in because the babe wasn't breathing well, not because of any problem with the mom. So while they didn't spell it real clearly the MW was probably guilty of pretty serious malpractice.

[applejuice]

e.r.

I did not see it b/c I do not watch television, but this I know:

Medically, when a woman has an uncomplicated, spontaneous, even joyous birth, the medical doctor writes in the records:

"UNREMARKABLE"...

When a woman has problems during labor and delivery, now that is entertainment!

What a sick culture we have.

[applejuice]

e.r.

Again, I do not watch television, so I did not see this show. I have worked in a medical library ( St. Joseph's in Burbank) and it is near Warner Bros. and NBC and Disney Studios; they do lend out alot of material to the studios and provide consulting services to the producers and directors of all of these shows.

[Chloe]

I saw the show, and I was annoyed, but I thought to myself- it could have been alot worse. I do think they should have been more sensitive to the fact that this baby had a genetic disorder, and no matter where she gave birth, the baby would still die. It does irk me, but it is a hospital show. I used to like ER, and I still watch it, even though I get irritated by it! Why I watch it, I don't know! I just wish they'd do something positive!

[Gracefulmom]

I was more irritated by the fact that no one offered to *take any photos* of her dear baby who was DYING!!!!

Just a personal thing, I'm sure. But we lost a son almost two years ago. The photos my nurses took of him and of us with him are precious and priceless to me now.

I sat there yelling at Abby to "Get a CAMERA!!" She never listens to a word I say.

[Valerie]

Originally posted by kama'aina mama
BUT... the midwife missed that mom was losing a lot of blood from a "retained placenta". The doc was tugging on the umbilical! Good plan if the woman is already bleeding badly, huh?

Well, uh...yeah, actually that IS a good plan if the woman is already bleeding, because there is no way to control the hemorrhage until the placenta is out.

Anyway -- since ER is supposed to be set in Chicago, those of us here were kind of wondering how they were going to treat the whole midwife/homebirth thing, given the hostile atmosphere towards midwives in IL.

To be honest, I didn't think it was all that bad. I saw the homebirth aspect of it as simply a plot device to get the baby into the ER. In a hospital birth, the whole situation would likely have been handled in L&D.

Valerie
Illinois

[kama'aina mama]

I stand corrected... I just cringed at the time though. I guess that's one of those counter-intuitive things. I agree, the HB was a plot device and a pretty thin one at that. I think many of us were holding our breath about how they would address the midwife issue and they just didn't address it at all. Sadly ER has gotten really bad about that in the last few years.

Mollydia... I feel ya honey. She never listens to me either!

[crazy_eights]

I didn't see the episode, but did anyone else think that this plot devise might have been dreamed up by someone who read the study out of Washington that said more low APGARS occur at home? One of the things said there were more fatal annomolies at home (b/c the parents don't test and abort).

[kama'aina mama]

Can't say for sure, but I doubt it. I think the illness/syndrome they wrote for the babe is undetectable prenataly. I actually read elsewhere that it would actually take days for them to confirm that diagnosis. Basically they wanted a newborn in the ER but they didn't want to do a delivery. They could easily have done the primary story (the issue of a DNR order) without the mom having any problem of her own at all but they chose to take a little dig at the MW. (Obviously this is just my opinion.)

[Louise]

I used to be a die hard ER fan but have since quit watching. I vowed never to watch again after they had an episode on an unvaccinated boy that comes in with measles and (of course) dies. They portrayed the mother as VERY uneducated and had many judgemental lines. Yep ! I would have been furious if I had watched the Home birth episode!!

[clevah girl]

I just happened to remember reading a while back that the woman who plays Nurse Haleh on ER made an independent film about a home birth.

The Blessing Way

Dir. Yvette Freeman, 2000, 35mm/color/20 min.

An African-American couple, expecting their first child, have chosen to bring the baby into the world with the assistance of a midwife in the comfort of their own home, incorporating an Americanized African ritual ceremony. When the woman’s sister, a corporate success story, arrives, the two women lock horns over the method of birth. The conflict between conventional medicine and African tradition reaches a climax and results in a very dramatic resolution.

For the past six television seasons, Yvette Freeman has played the role of Nurse Haleh Adams on the acclaimed dramatic series ER. She also played the role of Evelyn Smalley on the sitcom Working. Freeman has extensive stage credits as well. She received an Obie for Best Actress in 1998 for her starring role in Dinah Was. The Blessing Way is her first film project.





http://www.nohofilm.org/festival/2000/films-text.htm

[echodonn]

I read on the books and media board that E.R. was going to do a show on HB gone a muck! So I consciously decided not to watch the show this season.
I feel that I can't watch main stream shows on mothering because they portray how the majority of the peope in our country feel and if that's the way women feel or don't even acknowledge about nursing, natural healing, eating nutritously, and living positively then I cannot watch because it upsets me to know that a mother who was able to nurse at birth has no stopped (i.e. Rachel on "Friends") It also upsets me to think that people are not listening to themselves.
I know some women doubt popular practices but they don't acknowledge themselves. What kind of message are we teaching to our daughters about standing up for what we believe? And also what message are we portraying to our sons about how women should supress their constitutions and change more easily for others?
I feel that E.R. takes a media hot topic and exploits the negative to scare Americans into being one of the masses. If only main stream television showed positive light on alternative practices, we would have a lot of independant thinkers...OH NO!

[veganmamma]

Yeah, thanks ER for having this show days after we told ILs about our planned HB. Thanks a lot.