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Vow Of Silence Puts Newborn Baby’s Life at Risk
[Quote]:
An orthodox Jewish woman in Jerusalem risked the life of her newborn child to allow herself complete her vow of silence. The woman took the vow of silence which would finish at the end of Shabbat on Saturday night; however, the woman gave birth Saturday morning. So she hid the baby under her dress with the umbilical cord still attached, put the placenta in a bag and waited in her house. Medics were not alerted until the husband went to a rabbi for a blessing for the child and it the Rabbi who called the hospital. When paramedics arrived they were not allowed see the woman or child. A rabbinical tribunal was performed to relinquish the woman from her vow but even after that she still refused to speak or even communicate in any form. Eventually police and rescue teams had to use force to separate the mother from the child, cut the umbilical cord and rush the pair to a hospital. Ariel Atias, one of the paramedics, said ‘it’s a miracle the baby is safe and healthy, the incident could have ended badly’.
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The odds are pretty good. Women have delivered babies at home as long as there have been homes. (Most of them are better prepared). Even in Sierra Leone (probably the worst case) less than 2,000 of every 100,000 women die in childbirth, and about 40 in 1,000 babies.
It’s not exactly a miracle that the baby is safe, but had there been complications, with no one present and the mother refusing to seek help, it could easily have ended badly. Even in The Netherlands there’s continuing discussion how wise it is to do home births, which I believe are more prevalent there than in most similar countries.