Lifting The Veil

Stillbirthday: A Dr. Amy & Raptor Organization

I am going to explain to you the history and background of Stillbirthday as I have come to know it.

Many of you know Dr. Amy, the infamous retired OB/GYN who is adamantly opposed to homebirth and even natural birth. She is known for running blogs and groups such as The Skeptical OB, Hurt by Homebirth, and Fed up with natural childbirth. She has a relatively small following, but they are passionate about what they believe in. They roll their eyes at the thought of unnecessary Cesareans, they mock people who feel they’ve been birth raped, and they think that birth trauma is really just another way of saying “I successfully delivered a healthy baby”. Dr. Amy has also (directly or indirectly) spawned a group that calls themselves the Raptors.These are a group of women who fancy themselves something as mommy birth vigilantes.

The Raptors in numbers are somewhere in the neighborhood of 100, but Dr. Amy has a following on her blogs and groups of over 300.

One of their main activities is to search for baby loss stories, preferably in real time as they happen. I imagine tools such as Google Alerts are used for this, as when the bad news hits, they get it fresh off the presses. And, since almost all of these members are also fans of numerous birth related FB pages, they get fresh wind of loss even before anything hits the media, and they bring it over to the Amy group to discuss. Both members and Amy herself will do this.

But there is a criteria they are looking for: must have something to do with natural birth, homebirth, midwive-attended birth, or anything that deals with not having a hospital medicated, doctor-managed birth.

This is how they found Vylette’s mom and Margarita. Vylette’s mom is now a FB fan of Stillbirthday, and Margarita is now in the group that is fed up with natural birth, even after she had discovered how many people associated with the group ripped her apart and attacked her (which is not uncommon in anything Amy-associated).

The way they do it is this: they go straight for the throat. They extend their sympathy and try to win the friendship of the mother. They do this by swarming in with large numbers. They want to make her feel embraced, loved, understood, and accepted, and they do this while the mother is still fresh in grief, probably still in a state of shock. When they can’t hold back any longer or when the time feels right, they will express to the mother how dangerous midwives are, or out-of-hospital birth, and they will begin to deliver messages that say or suggest that their baby would not have died in a hospital. Sometimes this is true, sometimes it isn’t, but none of us are coroners, few of us are doctors, and none of us were on-scene or privy to the medical records. Basically, none of us would 100% know what we were talking about in order to diagnose or determine a cause of death. This fact has of course never stopped Dr. Amy, and naturally her fans and followers are cut from the same cloth.

What happens when they reach out to the loss moms fresh in grief? Typically it only goes in 2 directions. Either 1. the mother will resist, and then she will be attacked. See Michelle. 2. the mother will become recruited (even if slowly, gradually, or to a smaller degree) and become part of their groups. Obviously the goal is active recruitment.

Enter Stillbirthday. A resource started by a close friend of the Raptors, and run by Raptors. Endorsed by Dr. Amy herself.

 

Elizabeth (from In Search of the Perfect Birth) was shut down when she did a collection of posts regarding what would seem like obvious concerns about Stillbirthday (search for Getting Qualified Care in our search bar), one of the mentors (Liz P.) accused her of being a heartless bitch, and January BWF told her she was a trouble maker and a troll who was not really interested in healing. Just for asking these questions. Just for not feeling automatically convinced that everyone was on the up-and-up just because they promised to be good. In fact, whenever anyone expressed legitimate concerns, founder Heidi accused them of trying to squash her dead son’s legacy, which is what Stillbirthday represents to her. These individuals were unable to see past their own individual interests and into the broader scope.

That lack of concern for anything besides their own pain, coupled with the laundry list of unsavory affiliations, and the methodical way they seek and approach loss moms is compelling to any outside observer as to why one may be wary of such a group.

In fact, this will probably be accused of being “false”, and if history repeats itself, I would ask for clarification on what is false and get no response. Some will call this paranoia or conspiracy theory.

This would be really interesting coming from a group that has a secret group just for Raptors that reportedly, after infiltration (?), supposedly forced members to submit photo identification to be allowed in.

And when they visit your favorite birth page to voice their dissent (“troll”), they will insist that no echo chambers be allowed, shouting that they are tired of being silenced. However, they have silenced others, like when Dr. Amy deleted comments by loss mom Michelle on her blog, or when Heidi deleted Elizabeth and Michelle’s comments on posts about them for Stillbirthday. Despite the hypocrisy, they cling tightly to their identities as victims as they enter groups meant for support and encouragement… and then discourage and mock.  To point out what is becoming glaringly obvious in their agendas will be largely denied, in spite of all this.

Heidi to this day says things which are not true, such as critics of Stillbirthday admitting they lied or were wrong, or were only after popularity or page views when they chose to “attack” her, etc. The truth is, talking about this stuff makes people unpopular. The truth is, most groups shy away from posting this stuff because they are afraid of losing hits (not gaining them). Anyone who outs Stillbirthday is taunted with threats like “you’ll never be as big as Birth Without Fear!” or dangled promises, such as joining in a Master Blog with all the greats in exchange for cooperation or silence.  Psychologically it is classic to accuse others of something you yourself are actually guilty of (being only in it for money or fame, for example), but we can assure you– like Elizabeth’s past posts, this blog will not be bought out or silenced. Even if only 1 person ever reads it, the satisfaction lies in the truth being out, and you can’t put a price or a bribe on that.

---