When my third baby was born, he was healthy and perfect. He nursed really well, better than my other babies at birth. I brought him home, but soon I noticed that he occasionally sounded like he was gasping for air. It was so minor that it was almost imperceptible. My first two babies had never done this, though, and I didn’t want to take any chances. So we decided to take the 3-day-old baby to the hospital. My husband and I regret that decision. We had no idea that hospitals can threaten to take your baby away and even create something like a hostage situation.
My baby was given lots of tests, then was hooked up to wires for the night. A mattress (more like heavy springs with a cloth over it) was thrown onto the floor for me to sleep on. I’m not sure why there wasn’t some kind of bed for a nursing mother to stay with her infant. Every time my baby gasped for breath, the monitor did not go off at all. When a nurse happened to be passing by, she looked at my baby gasping as if it was completely normal. All the tests came back that there was nothing wrong. As soon as I knew that my baby was okay, I wanted to go home, but I went ahead and stayed the night.
The next morning I was ready to leave. After all, my baby was fine. But a forceful woman doctor started interrogating me, telling me that my baby could not leave the hospital until he had gained a lot of weight. He was already 8 pounds 12 ounces, totally normal, and my milk hadn’t come in yet, but he was nursing beautifully. She forced me against my will to feed my baby formula after every breastfeeding, and she threatened me that she would not release the baby until he weighed a certain amount that she made up out of her head. When I said, “I think I’ll just take my baby and leave,” she said that she would take my baby away by force.
At this point I felt like I was held hostage. Against my will I fed my baby formula after every feeding. Because of this I started bleeding because the baby would latch on much tighter because of the bottle, plus I always fed him for as long as possible to bring in my milk faster so that this hostage situation could come to an end.
Having just given birth a few days before, I was cramping up and bleeding now from three places, lying on a bed of springs, and every time I went to the bathroom, I got on my knees and begged God for the nightmare to end. (Inside the hospital room, there were windows where every passer-by could look in, so the bathroom was the only place for privacy.) When my husband came to see me, I just sobbed and sobbed and said to please talk to the wicked witch of a doctor if she came in, because everything I said, she twisted. I felt dizzy and just wanted to go home.
I think we were held hostage four entire days before we were allowed to go home. I will NEVER go to the hospital again unless someone in my family is almost dead.
Just yesterday I read an article by Michael Farris of a similar (but worse) situation of another homeschool mom. When I read the article (click here), I was so furious I could hardly see straight. The HSLDA is taking donations for this case, so if you want to stop this kind of idiotic ripping away of our rights as parents over our own children, please support them.
Tags: baby, doctor, Early Childhood, hospital, parental rights
I read the HSLDA article and was similarly outraged!! While we never faced anything like this with our babies, we had a visit from social services after a call by a family member. It was the most horrific thing we have been through as homeschoolers and as much as I enjoy teaching my children, I’ll admit I questioned putting them into public school for the first time in our 14 years of homeschooling. It absolutely undermines our RIGHTS as parents and I am so grieved to hear that you also endured this cruel treatment!
My prayers are with you and your family and with the family in the other article…You are NOT alone!!
I’m praying for Michael Farris as he fights for this woman in court. It’s truly an outrage, what officials in our country are doing to innocent people.
While I’ve never had this happen at the hospital I do know how it feels at a ped. office. When my 1st daughter developed nurse maids elbow (had no idea what it was at the time) we took her in because she kept screaming in pain and we couldn’t figure it out. Well when they got us in the room a nurse came in and took my daughter from us. There was no explanation, they took her and told us we had to wait for the dr to come in. He came in and explained it was a simple case of nurse maids elbow – I told him I wanted our daughter back and he told us that she was enjoying the nurses I said I want her back now! We finally were given her back. It was only after talking with my dad that he told us they more than likely suspected abuse and took her away from us to examine her (with no mom or dad to comfort her). I was furious if they knew it was nurse maids elbow just give her back. We stayed with them until after the birth of our 3rd when I finally decided I was tired of having my choices made, I was told it’s was terrible to not vax, that is was horrible to let my children sleep on their bellies even though they could roll over and that’s how they liked to sleep, I was told I was terrible for using spankings, how my 2nd daughter needed to go to daycare so she could learn how to be around others, and it goes on and on. Now I only go when they are sick, sick.
I think doctors like to think they are God. They sure act that way sometimes. We should be innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.
This seems to be more common than I would have suspected. Something similar happened to us. At 12 days old our son ended up in emergency, dehydrated from not getting enough milk through nursing. After 4 days of being hooked up to machines with so many wires that he couldn’t even wear clothe, he was doing very well and should have been released without any intervention on our part. I had just had a c-section and the accommodations were similar to what you had. I was really hurting and needed to get home and take care of my baby there. It took several “conversations” and a very determined mindset on our part to finally convince the doctor that we were heading home. I finally told him “It was my instincts that got him here for help in the first place after his doctor said he was fine. I’m sure if he has any more problems I will know it and I will do what needs to be done.”
It was ridiculous what we had to do to get our healthy son out of the hospital. They were literally to the point of doing nothing for him because he needed nothing from them.
They think they can watch over us by holding us captive but what they’re going to find is more parents who avoid the hospital when they really shouldn’t out of fear that their child will be taken away! And, it’s not just small or government hospitals, this was a very prominent hospital.
And don’t get me started on all the papers I had to sign every time we refused a vaccination! (finally found a DR. who doesn’t make me sign anything! )
It’s time we wake up and see what’s happening to our parental rights.
Thank you for sharing your story, Beth. This really is an outrage.