Anne Swanson, owner of Hypnobirthing Las Vegas, filed an injunction today to stop Sunrise Hospital from destroying her baby’s placenta against her wishes.
The mother who was rudely denied access to her baby’s placenta (yet promptly billed for the cost of delivering at North Vista Hospital) has decided not to file an injunction, as her placenta has also been ruined for encapsulation by careless staff. She explicity requested that the placenta be placed in the freezer until she was able to proceed with the court order as they demanded. When she called today to verify that they had indeed saved the placenta, she was told that it was still in the refrigerator. Since her baby will be a week old tomorrow, the placenta has now been rendered nearly useless, since the beneficial hormones she planned to utilize via the capsules dissipate over time. She cannot justify the fees to file an injunction to save it when she can not use it for its intended purpose anyway. She is holding open her option for a lawsuit in the future, and said she will definitely join our cause and add her name to the growing list of women fighting for change.
Anne would like to make sure that we proceed with her case in a way that will be best for women overall. Allowing Sunrise Hospital to destroy her baby’s placenta at this point would render all future legal action moot. Therefore, she needed to go ahead and file an injunction, effectively buying us more time to explore the legal options open to us.
The cost to file an injunction is nearly $200, even with a team of lawyers donating their time, efforts and energy for free. As a result, I have created a fund to help Anne with these legal costs. If we raise an excess of money beyond what is needed for Anne’s case, the remaining funds will be used to help offset legal fees for women who are forced down the same path as Anne in the future, and to fuel efforts for legislative relief from this issue.
If you would like to help our cause, please send your donation via PayPal to LegalizePlacenta -at- PlacentaBenefits -dot- info, or click on the Make a Donation button.
If you believe that a woman has a right to take home what she created and birthed, which sustained the life of her child in her womb, and which would naturally be born still attached to that child…
If you believe that it is wrong for a hospital to claim possession and complete ownership of a woman’s placenta once it is born and the umbilical cord severed…
If you believe that, then please get involved in this fight.
Spread awareness by emailing your friends a link to this blog, write letters to the editor at the Las Vegas Review-Journal or the Las Vegas Sun newspapers, write to our local legislators, write to hospital administrators, call media outlets to tell them you want to hear more about this situation, educate people as to the natural use of placenta starting at PlacentaBenefits.info – do whatever is within your power to do, but please do something. Outrage without action is useless.
If you are a pregnant woman in Nevada, call the Unit Manager (sometimes referred to as the House Supervisor) who is over the Labor & Delivery floor at your hospital of choice and notify them immediately of your desire to take your placenta home after its birth. If they say they will release it to you , get that in writing before you walk in to deliver your baby. If they say they need to hold it for a certain number of days, ask if they will place it in the freezer for the duration of the holding period, then get that in writing.
If they tell you they will not release your own baby’s placenta to you after the birth of your child, get that in writing, and then contact me. After you get their denial in writing, and you really do want to take your baby’s placenta home, tell them you will be going to another hospital that will respect your wishes. YOU PAY THEM for their services – you are a customer and deserve to have your wishes respected. You would not go back to a restaurant where the staff openly mocked your requests or acted like you were a silly, foolish woman for asking a question; charged you full price for the experience of being within the walls of their facility; and then honestly felt that you had no right to complain after they denied your request because it’s their “restaurant policy” to do so. I would expect you would choose another restaurant, even if it is a few extra miles down the road.
We’re talking about the birth of our children, mamas. You have a choice, but you need to make that choice before you go into labor. Unfortunately, once you are within the walls of a hospital, it has been proven time and again that your opinion and desires for your birth experience do not matter as much as you would think.
