Note: my point was that two mutually contradictory smears are being given full sway, and it wasn’t necessarily about the medical care.

That said, I’ve now looked at the source document (http://www.adn.com/626/story/382864.html) and it tells a different story and frankly puts Alan back in the ‘very likely stupid’ category. Possibly the rest of his post connected it all the way back to the Downs Syndrome, as it looks like others had a similar reaction, but since he deleted it, I guess we’ll never know.

Some highlights from the source article.

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Palin said she felt fine but had leaked amniotic fluid and also felt some contractions that seemed different from the false labor she had been having for months.

A woman can leak amniotic fluid and not be entirely certain what is going on or that birth is imminent. Four weeks early one can see how this could be cause for confusion, and not necessarily irresponsibility. On the other hand, a woman’s ‘water’ can break so that there is no question that it is broke.

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Palin kept in close contact with Baldwin-Johnson. The contractions slowed to one or two an hour, “which is not active labor,” the doctor said.

One to two an hour is not only ‘not active labor’ but is a far cry from active labor.

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“Things were already settling down when she talked to me,” Baldwin-Johnson said. Palin did not ask for a medical OK to fly, the doctor said.

“I don’t think it was unreasonable for her to continue to travel back,” Baldwin-Johnson said.

Her doctor, Baldwin-Johnson gave her the all clear.

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Still, a Sacramento, Calif., obstetrician who is active in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said when a pregnant woman’s water breaks, she should go right to the hospital because of the risk of infection. That’s true even if the amniotic fluid simply leaks out, said Dr. Laurie Gregg.

If you are quite certain that it is amniotic fluid. There very well could have been doubt. When my wife ‘leaked’ she couldn’t tell if it was amniotic fluid or not, since she’d been leaking urine for weeks and months. (She’d kill me if she knew I was writing this). We took her in not because of the ‘leaking’ but because of her general discomfort.

It sounds like it was actually determined that it was amniotic fluid after the fact, after she arrived in Alaska. Honestly, if it is only leaking then I don’t see how a woman is going to be able to verify it really is amniotic fluid, and with the contractions going away, in light of it being four weeks early, I could easily see how it might be perceived as a false alarm. If I recall correctly, we had a false alarm, too.

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Baldwin-Johnson said she had to induce labor, and the baby didn’t come until 6:30 a.m. Friday.

This cinches it to me. It was only once they touched down in Alaska that they determined that it was amniotic fluid. It sounds like there had been a very slight rupture but without any contractions coming on the heels of it to make it clear what was going on, thus the need to induce in light of the discovery that it was amniotic fluid.

I’ve driven my wife to the hospital three times while in labor. There ain’t no way in heck she’d have been able to fly in an airplane and hold her composure so that no one knew she was in labor pains. Just no way.

Also, in light of these ambiguities as she was experiencing them, it makes perfect sense to me that she’d want to get to her home hospital. Some doofus on one of the blogs made out that since she had a Downs Syndrome baby the best thing would have been to stay in Texas. This is nonsense. Speaking as one who has a similar experience, everybody at the hospital is prepped to deal with the specific concerns for this specific delivery, ahead of time. Everyone knows all the history, everything is planned for, etc. Sure, a good hospital will be able to wing it, but one can easily understand why she’d want to get back if she thought she could.

I lived the alternative. My daughter was born at the hospital where everything was ready for her, but because she came early, the person who was going to do all the operations on her was not in town. As a consequence, my daughter had to be airlifted to a facility two hours away. We were thrust into uncertainty: new doctors, new procedures, new facilities… nurses unaware of the situation, etc, etc. In fact, because of the chaos, numerous services that would normally have followed as a matter of course did not happen.

SO, especially because the child was special it makes sense that she’d want to get back.

We’re just going off of a news story here, but based on what I read it seems to be a far cry from the rank irresponsibility being impugned on her.