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I’ve been very closely following a particularly heartbreaking chain of events this week. If you are not familiar with the #notburiedtwice campaign, I strongly suggest you read this post.
In brief: Midwife Christy Collins, currently of Las Vegas, caused the totally preventable death of a baby through what in any regulated health care profession would be gross and obvious malpractice. She ignored a clear indication for immediate induction of labor: absolutely no amniotic fluid in a woman two weeks past her due date. Instead of transferring care, Christy crowdsourced “stories/opinions” via Jan Tritten, editor of Midwifery Today on Facebook. She subsequently delayed care by driving her client 30 minutes to a hospital that has a “midwife friendly” doctor. The baby died, and the midwifery community began to delete all evidence of the entire thing, including trying to hide Christy’s identity.
Luckily, the crowdsourcing led to a great roar of outrage from readers, who got busy screen capping and digging for the truth. As the truth behind Christy Collins’ and Jan Tritten’s lies unfolds, a letter came to light, which I am going to unpack.
There’s a lot to unpack, and very few LOLs to help.
For those new to my writing, I was in a cultic abusive relationship for over five years. I had a partner who created a small cult that, at times, would dwindle to me as the only follower. I was young, naïve and trusting, and I was at a major crossroads as a recent college graduate in a new and un fulfilling marriage. My abuser used a variety of brainwashing and manipulation tactics on me until I believed everything he said – which included that he could channel other beings, that my family and friends were the real abusers, that he became other people (including a “doctor”) and more. I ultimately divorced, cut off my family and friends and lived totally in his living fiction until I was able to break free.
After extensive deprogramming and therapy, I became very interested in Munchausen by Internet, a phenomenon detailed by Dr. Marc Feldman. I’ve followed several cases and written about the tactics used in cultic and manipulative abuse. It’s become almost a hobby, deconstructing the carefully crafted doublespeak. It is from that background I draw as I look at the following letter.
Next post will be far LOL-ier and less wall-of-text-ier
The full text of the letter has not been released, so I am making some educated guesses to fill in the blanks. I know this letter was written by Christy Collins, almost certainly to the mother, after the birth and death. I don’t know the identity of the family and do not want to add to their pain, so know that my estimations of the mother’s feelings and reactions is speculative. Nor do I think the baby’s father was unaffected; I am focusing on the mother as the letter appears to be to her. We are missing the introduction to the letter; we jump right in to Christy’s defense.
I wish I could go back in time, and have said stronger words – enough to make you hate me, and fell you had no choice but to go into the hospital the day before.
Right here, Christy is immediately laying the guilt on the mother. She gives an initial illusion of remorse, but immediately shows that she’s placed herself in the power position. This will become more apparent as we go along, but even in this first sentence it’s quite clear. Further, it’s important to note that, for the mother right now, Christy is likely still deeply trusted, so this primes Mom to say, “I could NEVER hate YOU!”
I could’ve lived with you hating me, over this feeling of devastation.
So much in each sentence. It’s really a masterpiece. This is all about Christy and how much the baby’s death hurt Christy so much. And that makes Christy so sympathetic, because she regrets it so. When you’re in any relationship where you are being groomed and manipulated, pain and sorrow felt by the manipulator is YOUR problem. This also prompts a soothing “it wasn’t your fault” response from Mom.
I know we say that we don’t know if it would’ve been any different; maybe he would’ve been very sick, but alive. I don’t know. But I wish I wouldn’t pushed much hard and said the things that we never want to hear the ‘experts’ say…
Translation: there’s nothing we could have done differently, because OBVIOUSLY Christy would have done it. Except it would have made the mother hate Christy. So really, whose fault is it? She’s not saying it outright… yet.
Instead of … telling you to “be prepared that the perinatologist doing the NST is likely to tell you that your baby could die if he doesn’t come out;” those should have been MY words.
Christy tips her hand a bit here. She told the parents that the doctor (or tech or whomever was at the testing facility) would be the bad guy. There is a tremendous pressure within the homebirth/natural childbirth movement to distrust all authority except the midwife, and Christy admits that she prepared the parents to ignore the (potentially lifesaving for the baby) advice. It is essential, though, that Christy acknowledge this if she wants her veneer of regret to stick.
You might have been really pissed at me for pushing you into a corner where you felt you didn’t have a choice, but … I wouldn’t care…
Here the picture of Mom as irrational and truly at fault becomes clearer. Because Christy was protecting herself from this woman who would have HATED her for agreeing with the medical establishment.
I am angry at myself for being the midwife who tried to be as firm but gentle as possible when advising to go in when I could’ve waved the dead baby flag…
Christy could have been the hated hero, instead of the tragically kind friend. There’s a subtle dig at doctors here too – if only OBs weren’t so gung-ho about “playing the dead baby card” and “scaremongering!” It conveniently ignores the scaremongering Christy did in regard to the doctors in the first place.
I wanted so badly to see a change in fluid … while you just wanted time/space to think …
Translation: Remember, YOU wanted to process the information. I just hoped it would be okay since I didn’t dare contradict you.
If I hadn’t agreed, and used the words “your baby could die because of this …”, maybe he would still be here.
Right here, she puts full blame on the mother. “If I had dared to disagree with you, baby might be alive. But YOU wanted TIME.
My back up doctor was amazing and the whole team worked so fast.
So it isn’t THEIR fault, no way. The fact that Christy withheld crucial information from that “amazing” team doesn’t bear mentioning. I bet she wasn’t calling them “amazing” while she was prepping the mother to ignore them.
Then the longest 47 minutes of our lives while they worked on your baby who had clearly been soaking in mec for weeks.
So it couldn’t POSSIBLY be Christy’s fault. Also, the image is devastating and would serve to give a dose of fresh anguish about the baby to distract from “hating” Christy.
Acidosis … bad blood gases … the worst of which had occurred in the last 20 minutes.
If Mom hadn’t been SO INSISTENT on waiting…and yet baby was clearly soaking “for weeks” in meconium. Christy is really underlining who she wants Mom to blame: Herself (and not Christy). Also not mentioned: The 30 minute drive to a hospital where there was a “midwife friendly” OB. 30 minutes, containing those last 20 minutes.
An induction yesterday, just one day after a perfect NST may not have mattered anyhow we were told…
If I hadn’t agreed to your desire to wait he might have lived! But he was doomed, so it’s not my fault! Although Christy pauses to note that they were told that by the scaremongering doctors you aren’t supposed to listen to.
Baby sounded perfect the next morning and we had the same BPP result after you rehydrated. You still wanted more time.
You had no reason to worry, so you wanted to wait, just like I taught you. So it’s your fault.
I said I didn’t feel we had any, and read to you what even other midwives had to say. That I wasn’t the only one who felt a sense of urgency.
This part requires extra unpacking, especially if you haven’t read the initial crowdsourcing post. The first big problem is that the majority of the midwives who replied gave dangerously uneducated answers. This is a situation where there is literally only one correct course of action: go to the hospital and get the baby OUT. Immediate induction or c – section, or else the baby may very well die. As we have seen happen here. Knowing this, and that very few responders gave any “sense of urgency” until after the update stating the baby had died, it is chilling to envision what happened at that computer.
Obviously this is conjecture, but my guess is that Christy read the comments and used tone of voice and careful wording to give mom a clear sense that there was consensus to wait. She could then, after the baby died, use the same words with different emphasis and tone to make mom think there was NOT consensus to wait. This is gaslighting. Mom, who is questioning herself at this point (as anyone would), may ultimately remember the second version of the story instead of the first. False memories are disturbingly easy to create.
Only 20 minutes later, your baby showed distress. And hour later, your baby was out … and gone.
Another dose of grief, make sure Mom can’t think for too long about any one point.
I wish I would’ve been so harsh with my words the day before, that you would’ve hated me.
Christy wants Mom to think Christy’s wracked with unjust guilt, because Mom was clearly so unstable.
Maybe you would be nursing your baby, angry about your induced birth experience, and refusing my visits.
Grief-and-guilt combo. Notice how she keeps making deliberately heartrending references to the loss? Keeping Mom in a high state of anguish prevents critical thinking. Mom can’t stop and remember exactly what happened. Memories recorded in a state of great emotion also can be both less reliable and more vivid.
Instead you and the daddy slept with your dead baby all night in a hospital bed …
This is exactly what I mean. That image us so heartbreaking that it’s where I had to stop reading and cry myself. It’s blunt and heartless and designed to make Mom cry too.
I blame me. I would rather have you hate me for pushing you harder into a bad birth experience … so you could hold a live baby instead.
And back around to Christy reminding Mom that this pain is Mom’s fault. If ONLY it had been SAFE to even SAY anything, but you’d HATE me for it!
Midwifery implies choices. Informed consent. Informed refusal.
A sudden shift to a totally businesslike argument that still focuses only on Mom’s Choice. Throwing “informed consent” and “informed refusal” as sentence fragments additionally helps plant them in Mom’s head (still reeling from the words “your dead baby.”) This letter doesn’t miss a trick in the manipulator manual.
No woman would refuse an induction if she knew what having a dead baby felt like.
Book-ending the buzzwords, Christy is implanting with another round of anguish and the blunt use of “dead baby” again. While in this one case I agree with the words Christy wrote, context is everything. She’s making it clear that Mom refused an induction and implicitly the baby’s death is Mom’s fault.
I’ll say, no mother who has lost a baby is going to feel anything but raw anguish at blunt language like that within mere days of the loss. I have lost a baby (under vastly different circumstances) and words like that, during the rawest phase of grief, sear in a special, terrible way. To have them coming from someone you trust profoundly (as Christy clearly arranged, what with the “you’d hate me” focus) would be indescribable.
In the future, I’ll pressure until my client hates me. I won’t care.
That’s right, if she gets another irrational, unstable mother to be, she will use you as the Goofus to her Gallant and risk being hated. This is also an extra pang of guilt for Mom, and one that could easily slip under the radar: that Mom “ruined” Christy’s caring, gentle nature and MADE her not care. From inside of the manipulation, that is powerful shame to bear.
How is this mother supposed to know what to think, with Christy reframing? It is not coincidental that this letter was rushed out while mom is still deep in the trauma. Every word here is chosen to elicit a specific response. It’s a perfect manipulative attack, and my heart breaks for this mother. It is all the worse because the community that has supported the mother has already turned on her. The midwives who responded to the crowdsourcing are all very adamant that this was ALL MOM’S CHOICE.
It wasn’t. This letter is just one more piece of evidence that it was Christy Collins, CPM and the community supporting her dangerous, manipulative agenda. Trying to blame it on the mother – and make her blame herself – is just the vile icing on a deadly cake.
I will fight to my last breath lying liars who lie, especially those who break hearts and cause deaths.
Out of Context 
She knew the perinatologist would tell her the baby was in danger, why didn’t she tell her the baby was in danger before it got to that point. And this “perfect NST” was performed by her…with a doppler. She’s a criminal.
Fucking hell.
I am literally nauseated at that letter, especially with your dissection of it.
That is despicable and disgusting, and I have no words deep enough to express my true feelings. That is just… beyond…
Thank you for this post.
I never thought of it that way but you are 100% correct.
Good work babe.
wow. I thought the letter was horrible when I first read it, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. This so clearly states exacly why. Disgusting.
Read the letter off Dr. Amy, and was reviled. After your very insightful and astute dissection of it, I am even more horrified, but I am also incredibly angry. How dare she do this to a woman whose whole world has just been destroyed, (by her, no less)? She is evil. Whether you believe in God, karma, or a universal sense of justice, this woman deserves consequences.
And why is Christy so insistent that mum would have had a bad birth experience? She could, with the right support, have had a quick induction, a manageable labour and an easy birth, followed by an early departure from hospital, a babymoon at home, and the possibility of a home birth next time should she want one.
Yet Christy deliberately sets up the live baby+bad birth/dead baby+ lovely homebirth dichotomy in such a way as to say, I did it for YOU – all for YOU. I wanted you to have your lovely homebirth SO BADLY, which (again) means this is ALL YOUR FAULT!!
A spot-on analysis. And chilling. This woman is a piece of work.
Oh, and I’ve got a problem with the very premise of the letter. It’s written in a way that was meant to present Christy and her Facebook advisors as competent providers who knew what was going on but oh, Christy was the poor victim of the mom’s selfish determination to have this homebirth, come hell or high water.
I really don’t think it was the case. Facebook was clear. They were a bunch of dangerous incompetents. In this revolting letter, Christy aimed to preserve their professional image and respectability, so everyone the parents would show the letter would be awed by their great knowledge and sad plea brought only out of the goodness of Christy’s heart. Christy was the victim here, that’s the insinuation.
Excellent analysis.
For me the key sentence is “instead of telling you to ‘be prepared that the perinatalogist doing the NST is likely to tell you that your baby could die if he doesn’t come out,’ those should have been MY words.”
It’s a flat-out admission that she KNEW what medical advice would be, and that she encouraged the mother ahead of time to disregard it. Who knows how strongly she put it, or how much discussion there was about it? Discussion in which Christy backed up those words with phrases like, “They’re just worried about liability,” and “They think babies are like library books,” and “cascade of interventions,” and “you’ll end up with a c-section?” I seriously doubt she made that one simple statement and let it go at that. I seriously doubt–she all but admits she didn’t, and her actions wrt FB are a further admission–that she used that statement to open a serious discussion about the possibility of the peri being correct.
But by bringing it up, she’s encouraging the mother to remember the mother’s own response to that statement, which was likely fearful or uncomfortable, and thus encouraging the mother to think, “That’s right, I went into that test thinking that I didn’t want those things. I chose to handle this the way I wanted. I would have hated Christy if she’d tried to talk me into an induction because *I* was so set on non-interventions and letting things happen ‘naturally.’ I was dismissive of the idea that the peri could be right, and would have just been angry had Christy agreed with him. I hired Christy to protect me from that sort of thing. She was just doing what I told her to do.” Whether those thoughts are true or not, Christy has planted them in the mother’s mind.
And all of the nonsense about “you would have hated me,” further backs up that idea (I know you said it repeatedly, I’m just completing my thought): that the mother was absolutely set on one course of action and wouldn’t have tolerated any disagreement, and that poor Christy had no choice but to go along if she wanted to be there for the mother at all and continue protecting and helping her.
“Pushing you into a corner where you felt you didn’t have a choice,” further emphasizes and encourages the mother to think of herself as someone fighting for the course of action she wanted, valiantly battling against those who disagreed, with only Christy standing beside her; it encourages the mother to think she would have felt abandoned if Christy had disagreed. And by doing so it encourages the mother to absolve Christy of blame and take it on herself.
It is so very vile.
Like others, I was horrified and sickened when I read the letter. Reading your analysis helps me see why. This woman is twisted.
I couldn’t tell from all the original posts — was Ms. Collins actually asking for advice during the crisis or just anonymously (through Ms. Tritten) trying to get validation for what she must have known were bad decisions on her part? I guess I’m having a problem understanding why a “professional” would be on bloody FACEBOOK asking for advice while the drama was unfolding; I can see someone who knows she’s screwed up trying to get her ducks in a row after the fact.
What a frickin’ mess. Is there NO WAY to prosecute this idiot??
Yes, she really anonymously crowdsourced “opinikns/stories” in an emergency with a clear, non ambiguous warning sign. This is horrifically common – they just got caught this time. I recommend The Skeptical OB for info, or the Not Buried Twice page on Facebook. There is literally no regulation of Certified Professional Midwives – not Certified NURSE Midwives, who are educated professionals. CPMs have little to no training, no oversight, NO SAFETY REGULATIONS OR PRACTICES, and do not carry malpractice insurance and thus are lawsuit proof. The more you learn the more horrific it gets.
Ugh. I did read the screen cap of the very long thread, and couldn’t tell if the original request was during the emergency or after. I’ve learned a lot: didn’t know there were such things as uncertified, uneducated midwives, I guess I thought they had to be educated and licensed and were regulated just like all medical caregivers. Not sure how lack of insurance makes you lawsuit proof; shouldn’t make you prosecution-proof. I’d love to see an angry lawyer make the case for depraved indifference; all that crap on Facebook should give them a LOT to work with.
Grannie unfortunately it is incredibly common for state laws and the practice of the midwives such that they are in a legal grey area and often aren’t prosecuted. Even when they are the homebirth advocates all get together to protest, wrote letters and finance the killer midwife ‘ s defense. It’s a really unfortunate situation.
She asked on Jan Tritten’s personal page, while the baby was still alive. quite a few “midwives” gave ridiculous advice. Someone told her to give the mother stevia, one told her to leave her alone, one idiot actually asked where the fluid went. About halfway down the thread Jan informed us that the baby had died. The thread exploded with outrage, was deleted. There were other threads, including a midwife asking what to do with a mother with PROM at 29 weeks that were deleted because we hijacked them with questions about the lost baby. Jan posted a disclaimer saying that all questions she posted were anonymous and had nothing to do with her, we hijacked that one too and it was promptly deleted along with other posts that we appeared on. Midwives, such as Gail Hart and other prominent CPM’s, tried to claim that it was a hypothetical teaching case and not a baby’s death witnessed in real time. Midwifery today posted a disclaimer for Jan as well, and informed that Jan was away from the internet. I think many of us have been banned from both Jan’s page and Midwifery today.
Brenda did the same to me. I had emails and her in my home trying it. I remember her crying and telling me she didn’t want me mad, that God does things, she has cancer, etc. She reminded me that she loved me and held my hands. It was all for show.
I’ve heard midwives state first hand that the death of their clients’ babies were the clients’ fault. All they were doing was honoring their wishes.
It’s sick. Sick. Sick. Sick.
No, you cannot call yourselves professionals and then behave as if you have no professional duty. NO.
“Birth is as safe as life gets.”
Read: “So I’m not going to do anything at the intersection of life and death.”
What is a client paying a midwife for? For lighting candles? For holding hands? For stewing herbs for a special postpartum bath? For what?
What’s so nauseating about this whole debacle is that this attitude pervades midwives across the country. I do not live in Oregon or Nevada. I live no where near Jan Tritten or Christy Collins. But I’ve witnessed these behaviors firsthand among midwives. I’m not talking about on FACEBOOK pages or blogs. I’m talking about real, personal, one-on-one conversations with CPMs. It’s a sick, insidious attitude that has infected MANY.
Breech is normal, VBAC after multiple cesareans is normal, twins are normal, postdates are normal, 35 weekers are normal. EVERYTHING IS NORMAL.
They lie. These things are not normal. Women and their children are being irreparable hurt by these practices. They are being sold a bill of goods.
This is SPOT ON. Every single apology is subtly couched in insinuations that it’s NOT her fault. Sickening.
Her words “in the future” disturb me. In all areas of medicine, things go wrong, accidents and mistakes happen. But her mistakes are beyond the beyond, and instead of accepting responsibility, she chooses instead to blame everyone but herself. She chose her ideals above the life of a mother and baby. This woman should NEVER be allowed to touch another pregnant woman again.
I know we have disagreed a lot on skeptical ob (for entirely understandable reasons!), are you comfortable with me reblogging your writings? I hope I did not give you the impression that your perspective was not worthwhile, quite the opposite. I don’t usually bother arguing w/people who aren’t thoughtful and interesting. I really enjoyed this piece and would like to share it on ex home birthers with your permission. Keep on bloggin!
Reblog away! I don’t hold grudges unless they’re really earned. Having a different opinion than I have and arguing/debating? Pft, that ain’t no thing. ETA please just include a link back to my blog 😉
I came here from Skeptical OB. There was something “off” about Christy’s letter, but I couldn’t figure out what it was (other than the attempts to blame the mother). Thanks for the deconstruction. It’s a much more subtle and evil piece of work than I realized.
the more I read this letter the more speechless I become at the masterful manipulation this monster is using. I cannot believe it’s not calculated. anyone who can lose a baby and 4 days later post a poem about babies never being overdue is a borderline sociopath.
Huge fan of your blog. I once read the whole thing when I was up all night with a bad fever. Your post about Twilight was my favorite. I salute you, Most Interesting Person on the Internet
Reposting my response to this on Skeptical OB site per the request of one of the posters there:
“You are spot on about the manipulation and gas-lighting. The parallels between the dynamics of this midwife-client relationship–at least from the midwife’s POV– and those of an abusive relationship are disturbing.
I wonder if this letter isn’t also an attempt to create some kind of record. It feels very much like a way to set down a version of events that paints the midwife in the best possible light (loving and concerned but just not firm enough to force her into a bad experience). She’s making a concerted effort to frame the mom as being a certain kind of person–resisting intervention, wanting more time to think, likely to become irrational and vindictive if she were told things she didn’t want to hear, someone who had made informed choices and refusals– when, by the midwife’s own admission, the gravity of the situation was either downplayed or never communicated to her.
Look at the language she uses to describe the potential (and completely imaginary) reaction of the mother: hate, hate, hate, pissed off, angry, refusing visits, more hate… She wants someone to get the impression that the mother is not a nice, normal, stable person. Normal, stable people do not hate people for giving them unwelcome but true information that can potentially save their child’s life. The implication is clear.
And then in contrast, she presents herself as “firm but gentle”, concerned but just not forceful enough to overcome mom’s irrationality and potential hatred. …If she had just pushed a little harder, waved that “dead baby flag” even at the risk of being hated!
And she’s careful to specify several times that the mother wanted time to think and to state it in such a way as to make it sound as though the mother was aware of the dangers and resisted anyway, when we know that the midwife herself was so unaware that she appealed to midwives on Facebook for information. She couldn’t possibly have given her enough information for informed refusal since–she didn’t even know it herself! She states that she read what the other midwives had to say, but that makes it sounds as though she was relaying some sense of concern and urgency, instead of, as we know from FB, passing along an embarrassing bunch of nonsense about stevia, etc.
It’s a slimy, manipulative attempt to rewrite history in a way that makes her look as good as possible, downplays the effects of her actions, and casts blame and character aspersions on the mother.”
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Wasn’t sure if you heard, but Gavin’s mom reposted this on the FB page she created for him. https://m.facebook.com/GavinMichaelBrooks?rfid=46
Why did the mid wife not dial 911. If she knew the baby was in trouble and the mother was being difficlut. To keep her name clear and the saftey of mother and baby they need modern medical. When it is easy to delivey mid wife’s are wonderful. When difficulties show up do the right thing send them to hospital. What is the problem with that?
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