A Home Birth Midwife Killed My Child

Guest post by Bambi Chapman

On June 4th 2008, I awoke like any regular day. I was 36 weeks pregnant with my sixth child and looking forward to meeting the little person I had been carrying. Our home birth was planned and we were using the midwife I had previously hired. She was amazing and I had complete faith in my body and the process. There wasn’t an ounce of fear within me.

I did not anticipate that I would go into labor that day. I still had 25 days till my due date. My oldest child was born at exactly 36 weeks with a nuchal cord, which meant he was born blue and floppy, but with medical help, he did great. My midwife was completely fine with a slightly early delivery and I trusted her judgment. I went on with my day like usual, even taking my daughter to her ballet practice. I would stop and breathe, then go about everything. After going home, I spent the night going between my tub and birth ball.

In the middle of the night, I lay in the tub thinking "This hurts. I should just go to the hospital." I knew this meant I was getting closer. I was able to check and feel the dilation, which let me know that I was making improvement. Sometime after 3 am a.m. on the June 5th I woke up my husband because I no longer could labor alone. We called my midwife at 4:10 am to let her know she needed to come.

By 4:40 am the midwife had not arrived and I knew the birth was imminent. My husband panicked and called 911 because we were alone and he didn’t want to have to deliver our baby. Unfortunately for him, the moment he hung up with them, he had to deliver our daughter. Just moments later we had medics filing into our home. They weren’t educated on childbirth, so when they knew this was a planned home birth with a midwife, they decided to just wait on her.

At 5:45, nearly three hours after I had called, my midwife walked in the door. She briefly looked us over and advised against transport. As soon as she sent the medics on their way, she helped us out of the tub and into my bedroom. I was exhausted, having been awake for 26+ hours, and laboring for 18 of those. By this time, we had a few concerns about our daughter that she explained away, and all explanations were completely plausible. She said that Mary Beth was healthy, and we trusted that she was an expert.

Several hours later, my husband offered to let me nap while he took care of all the children. Our daughter needed some sunlight due to jaundice already showing up, so that was a great idea to me. This would be the last time that I would hold my living daughter. Just an hour after I lay down, my husband woke me up as he thought she had stopped breathing. I took her from him and she was lifeless. We had to call 911 again that day and do CPR on our brand new healthy baby.

As I saw the ambulance pull up, I ran her to the door and handed her to the medic. They had me put on shoes so I could go with her. Although the hospital was 10 minutes away, it seemed to take forever. The details are still fuzzy, but I remember bits and pieces. The most prominent memory that I have is “We’ve given her two shots of epinephrine and she’s not responding”. I was in disbelief because I thought I had done everything right and that she was healthy.

This being the death of a "healthy" baby, an investigation was opened. To our surprise, the detective shared the newborn exam form that our midwife had given him, which was not the same one we had. My husband was at the police department before her funeral because of this form. The detective called her on it, and so she created another one. The detective had everything in hand, so he knew where the inconsistencies were in her story.

Word was out within the midwifery community before our daughter was even buried, which led to the midwife waiting on our steps when we got home from the cemetery. She was angry that other midwives were discussing her potential negligence and the legalities that could ensue.

Four weeks later we received Mary Beth’s death certificate. One of the lines on this form is "Major Contributing Factor," which had been filled in with, "Home Birth." That was not the answer that I was anticipating. I had convinced myself that she had some kind of disease or congenital anomaly to where we weren’t even going to have more children. With that paper in hand, I called the medical examiner for answers. My midwife completely missed respiratory distress and had she realized this was the problem, our daughter could have received the medical care she needed and would have survived.

Our midwife found out that we had the death certificate, which led to multiple manipulative and panicked emails from her. She was kind enough to send prenatal records, which she had gone back and scribbled over my gestational ages to make it seem as though I was already 37 weeks and full term. We later learned that our daughter was not the first lost baby and has not been the last. The detective found an excerpt from an ebook in which our midwife bragged about the many ways in which she would not cooperate with law enforcement, impede investigations, and had walked away from a manslaughter charge. He labeled my daughter’s death a negligent homicide, but due to politics and legal matters, would not attempt to file charges.

Within six months of our daughter’s death, I had created enemies where friends once stood because I chose to stand up. Some women were angry enough that they took to harassment, stalking, threats, and slander in an attempt to silence me. I’ve been banned from many places because I have dared to speak up. Many have blamed me for her death because I should have been more educated, should have known something was wrong, and should have vetted my midwife better. The thing was that I trusted my midwife. She had glowing recommendations. She gave us all the right answers, and on top of already having had one homebirth with this midwife. I had been an avid homebirth supporter for almost 7 years before my daughter’s birth.

Mentally, I struggled with myself for several years. I attempted suicide shortly after her death. I had to get to where I swallowed back the guilt because I couldn’t handle it. It was just too much. As the slander, threats, harassment, and stalking came to a head, it brought back everything that I had dealt with. This time, I made the “Help me” phone call instead of doing anything. I know women want so badly to squash their vulnerabilities, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of a grieving mother. I didn’t ask for, nor did I want this.


I wanted a happy life with my family and that included my little girl.

This isn’t something you would wish on your worst enemy.



Note from Back From Nature:

We want to deeply thank Bambi for being brave enough to share her story. Discussing loss is extremely painful for all mothers, and after a death as traumatic as Mary Beth's, it's particularly amazing that her mother is selfless enough to speak up to prevent similar tragedies from befalling other families.

Bambi, Mary Beth's death was in no way your fault. It was the fault of an irresponsible practitioner who was fed and fueled by a dangerous subculture. We hope you continue to heal from your trauma and we wish you and your family happier days ahead.