I m confused by this response. Virginia Birthing Freedom communicates with over 400 families in Virginia. While we are hardly an exhaustive or official source, I can tell you that in the past several years, we don t know of any deaths associated with home birth, either occurring at home or surviving long enough to get to a hospital. We do know that in September 1997 a woman in Stafford County died eleven hours after giving birth at home. The lab has ruled out a pulmonary embolism, heart attack or hemorrhage, some of the possible reasons for maternal death during childbirth.
Toxicology tests are under way.
Eight months later, however, the Chief Medical Examiner ruled that death had been due to hemorrhage. As a result of the Chief Medical Examiner s conclusion the midwife was charged with involuntary manslaughter. Eventually the manslaughter charge was dropped,and in May 2000 the midwife pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges, which explicitly stated that her conduct did not result in any harm to her client. Dr. Marsden Wagner, former director of maternal and infant health for the World Health Organization, believes that the first medical examiner s conclusion was correct, and that both lab and EMT reports ruled out hemorrhage as the cause of death. It is very important to us that the State Chief Medical Examiner explain what she meant by we do see, each year, a few deaths related to home birth.