‘She was like a deer in headlights’: how unskilled radical birthkeepers took hold in Canada (www.theguardian.com)
from HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to world@lemmy.world on 20 Dec 09:58
https://sh.itjust.works/post/51917629

FBS, which promotes an extreme version of free birth in which women abandon any form of prenatal care and give birth without doctors or midwives present, is estimated to have generated more than $13m in revenues since 2018. A recent Guardian investigation identified 48 cases of late-term stillbirths or neonatal deaths or other forms of serious harm involving mothers or birth attendants who appear to be linked to FBS.

(Yolande) Norris-Clark has not responded to repeated requests for comment about the Guardian’s investigation, which is told through The Birth Keepers podcast series. She has previously defended her partnership with Saldaya, saying FBS is “the most ethical kind of business you can run”. Critics of FBS, she has said, fail to understand the commitment to women taking “radical responsibility” for their births. And she has said it is unfair to hold her responsible for the choices of a mother who consumes her content.

Many of the women who follow Norris-Clark on social media, seeking advice in their pregnancies, are unaware of her more extreme views, which she sometimes revealed to FBS students. “I actually don’t believe that gravity is true,” she told FBS students in 2024, adding: “Maybe that just makes me crazy and that’s totally OK.” In another class, she told students they could cut a baby’s umbilical cord with an “old rusty fork”. “I don’t believe in germ theory,” she said, “I don’t believe in contagion,” adding: “But even if contagion were real … there would be a pretty much 0% chance of anything happening.”

#world

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Blackmist@feddit.uk on 20 Dec 10:25 next collapse

Bringing back “dying in childbirth” at the ripe old age of 24.

markz@suppo.fi on 20 Dec 10:57 collapse

Back to the good old days. It’s the natural way, just as god intended.

ThePyroPython@lemmy.world on 20 Dec 10:36 next collapse

Yet another example of the bubble-wrapped child-safe world allowing evolutionary dead-ends to survive to procreate.

Rothe@piefed.social on 20 Dec 10:44 next collapse

No, you can fuck right off with that moronic social darwinism.

[deleted] on 20 Dec 11:24 collapse
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gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de on 20 Dec 16:53 collapse

I’ve been thinking about this a lot.

Not everybody trusts what’s written in the textbooks. And it’s actually likely that things have to be proven over and over again for some people to actually believe it. That means that there has to be a continuous flow of “bad examples” to incentivize learning how to prevent them. It might not actually be avoidable.

roguetrick@lemmy.world on 20 Dec 10:46 collapse

Read some history hoss. There were plenty of morons when child mortality was high.

black_flag@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 20 Dec 11:06 next collapse

Yeah that comment took a surprisingly dark turn. I expected it to be something about survivorship bias leading people to do more stupid shit because they’ve been so protected they haven’t had to face danger, but like…“oh see what happens when we don’t kill off those people”?? Wtf how do you get there

HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works on 20 Dec 14:22 collapse

Read some history hoss.

I did not have Bonanza on my 2025 Bingo card. 🐎

SolSerkonos@piefed.social on 20 Dec 11:31 next collapse

“I don’t believe in germ theory,” she said, “I don’t believe in contagion,”

Ah, yes, I agree. It’s definitely the four humors that actually cause disease. “Covid-19” is just caused by a build up of phlegm. I just haven’t figured out why the build up of phlegm spreads from person to person.. hmmm.

Kornblumenratte@feddit.org on 20 Dec 14:04 next collapse

It’s miasmas.

Mirshe@lemmy.world on 21 Dec 01:56 collapse

This actually. Down here in the US, RFK has literally admitted in a book that he doesn’t think germ theory is real, and that he basically believes in miasma. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if that’s migrated other places.

dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net on 20 Dec 14:20 next collapse

Also, gravity isn’t real, everything is just weirdly sticky. Even at very long distances.

Deathray5@lemmynsfw.com on 20 Dec 16:44 collapse

Sorry about that 😔

gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de on 20 Dec 16:51 next collapse

Ah, yes, I agree. It’s definitely the four humors

I think for these people it’s probably less the four humors and more “your personal soul that’s judged by god” or sth like that.

ieGod@lemmy.zip on 20 Dec 21:31 collapse

I don’t believe we should save these people.

lka1988@sh.itjust.works on 21 Dec 00:08 collapse

Willfully ignorant people like that, yeah I don’t disagree.

etherphon@lemmy.world on 20 Dec 12:36 next collapse

They made $13,000,000 without the use of any medicine, medical supplies, doctors, or training apparently… that’s insane.

Corporal_Punishment@feddit.uk on 20 Dec 12:41 next collapse

The anti-medicine/anti-vax/anti-professional intervention crowd need to get in the fucking bin

realitista@lemmus.org on 20 Dec 12:46 next collapse

Evolution is a slow process, but it will eventually take care of the job.

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 20 Dec 13:14 collapse

Humans have supplanted natural selection. Evolution will not fix this.

realitista@lemmus.org on 20 Dec 13:22 next collapse

Well in this specific case where people are choosing to have their children die in birth or via going unvaccinated I would say it’s pretty direct.

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 20 Dec 13:29 collapse

Children don’t automatically inherit their parents’ political beliefs.

realitista@lemmus.org on 20 Dec 15:21 next collapse

No but that doesn’t matter if they die before they can change anything.

icelimit@lemmy.ml on 22 Dec 03:47 collapse

It’s more that stupid parents aren’t going to have kids because stupid. That’s how evolution selects - if an individual or more specifically, a trait isn’t suitable, it or it’s offspring have a very low likelihood of continuing their lineage.

Trait being fatally stupid in this case

pulsewidth@lemmy.world on 20 Dec 15:38 collapse

No, but nature doesn’t have political opinions either. These children dying because their parents can’t make smart decisions for their birth is the harsh reality of natural selection at work.

rammer@sopuli.xyz on 20 Dec 14:11 next collapse

Eventually it will when enough people die.

Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca on 20 Dec 16:06 next collapse

Whoosh! It’s a darwin award joke.

gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de on 20 Dec 16:49 collapse

Humans have supplanted natural selection [with modern medicine]. Evolution will not fix this.

It might still if you refuse to go to the doctor.

Apart from that, the majority of evolution today happens through sexual selection: The potential partner that appears fitter is chosen and reproduces, it’s not necessary for the less-fit potential partner to die.

Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca on 20 Dec 12:51 collapse

They are working on that.

eronth@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 22 Dec 04:25 collapse

Frustratingly they seem to be working on getting other people in the bin.

Timecircleline@sh.itjust.works on 20 Dec 15:34 next collapse

This is so interesting to me. I had a theory that a lot of the free birth movement stemmed from the financial barriers to medically supported birth in the US, and wanting to reclaim some kind of control. If it’s their choice to not seek medical care it’s empowering- if they can’t afford it, they are disenfranchised. In a nation of “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” nobody wants to admit they are too poor for healthcare. Being able to curate an image on social media of how this is the “better” option- even if they convince themselves to genuinely believe it!- let’s them keep self esteem.

Canada doesn’t have the same financial barriers but we are so steeped in American media that I’m not surprised it’s caught on here.

What I am surprised about is how are they making money??? What are you selling??

brucethemoose@lemmy.world on 20 Dec 16:11 next collapse

how are they making money??? What are you selling??

Keyword: “social media”

It’s almost like it’s coincidentally at the center of every modern grift out there.

scytale@piefed.zip on 20 Dec 16:29 next collapse

They sell books and memberships, of which the latter is expensive IIRC. Like hundreds of dollars a month expensive.

gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de on 20 Dec 16:46 collapse

I had read a conspiracy theory somewhere that “freebirth” is all about being “anti-establishment”.

In this picture, everything that has to do with the federal government (including being a “certified” medical personal) are seen as being “top-down”, and it’s “seeking independence” to reject that. That’s why they don’t even want any medical professional to see the baby, because they’re worried that the baby is going to be implanted a chip to make it adhere to future state ideology or sth, and that can only be avoided by basically giving birth at home and not even telling the state that a pregnancy is about to happen (so they can’t forcefully transfer the woman to a hospital), so there’s a bit of secrecy about it too.


Personal comment/interpretation: I mean, it’s interesting to watch how these ideas of “anarchy” and “self-determination” unfold here. It’s very interesting to see how the same idea of “wanting to be independent” can manifest itself in completely different, and often opposite, ways. It’s like if somebody told you that the establishment is bad, and you’ve heard these words your whole life, how do you know it’s not true? How do you go to a hospital if everybody around you is wary of that and says they might want to poison you or idk what? How does a medical system (that is financed by the state) build the trust that it is actually safe to go there? How do you reach the people that don’t know you yet?

philpo@feddit.org on 20 Dec 19:46 collapse

Absolutely. In central Europe, were homeschooling is often illegal, it’s also a way of making sure the kid stays off the radar of the school system, the CPS, is not part of any society - and therefore cannot leave your scene.

Which is a wet dream of the sovereign citizens.

velindora@lemmy.cafe on 20 Dec 18:08 next collapse

🐆

Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca on 20 Dec 21:54 collapse

My daughter would have died were it not for CHEO.

These idiots can fuck all the way off straight to hell.