Friday, December 7, 2012

The New BirthLIVE Project - Independent, or Another Shell?

With the implosion of the "FREE Live Streamed View of Childbirth" and its corresponding Indiegogo campaign, many of us are wondering what is going to happen with the event.  A statement was promised "shortly" on Saturday, December 1st.  Several inquiries were made throughout the week.  Finally, on Thursday, December 6th, after yet another inquiry the night before, the ever-responsive "Brio Birth" deflected, saying that Nicole had been sick with a stomach bug that week.  (Was that before or after the trip to the beach?)  Oh, and her family, too!  Play that family card with the birth community - that will hold them off.  Why was Nicole the one writing the statement, anyway?  What happened to taking care of the pregnant mom, protecting her from "harrassment"? That statement was Brio's responsibility.  But let's move on...

Despite the utter lack of any kind of announcement from Brio, there seems to be some motion behind (or beside?) the scenes.  Suddenly we see the half-formed, but already-launched, "birthLIVE.org".  (Yes, they have a Facebook page already, too!)  This page announces that Nicole is "the Brains" behind the project (with a Lorem Ipsum? Really?), but it does not give any indication of who the rest of the body is, though that body seems to be very possessive ("our wonderful" Nicole Hoff?  This writing drips with Naomi's style).  My suspicion is that it is a front for Brio, with Nicole providing cover for the Thomases, just as they got Karl Clinger and Embrion to do.  I could be wrong, and if Nicole is really doing this without any of the Brio Bunch, power to her.

Even more interesting is the Funds page - the most complete page on the site as of this writing, but no, it's not about the money.  (Screenshot saved for posterity here.)


"As you can see we are a .org meaning that no individual or business will take profits from the birthLIVE project.
This does not mean we will not be paying for services provided to the project by outside companies, or that our people will not be paid just that no one is going to get rich off of the birthLIVE project."
FALSE.  Anybody can purchase a .org domain - for their nonprofit, their for-profit business, their family, or any other website they want to make.


"No more than 20% will ever go to administration or operational costs, and to start we will keep it under 10%. To put this into perspective many non-profit entities have less than a 20% pass through – meaning that nearly 80% of their funds go to administrations and operational costs."

FALSE.  According to charitynavigator.org, (OH LOOK! A .ORG DOMAIN!) 70% of the charities they evaluated have a pass through of 75% or greater, and 90% have a pass through of 65% or greater.  80% pass through is a laudable goal, but not really a distinctive feat.


"We know that you may be saying “those numbers don’t add up..."


You bet we are.

16 comments:

  1. Poor Naomi. To have a FB page with only 5 likes after two whole days. That's gotta be hard.

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    1. Don't think it is "live" yet, so there's that. The 5 likes (guess here) are their fake personal page for admin (which btw is not a valid page per FB TOS), Naomi, Kyle, J Lauren Peters, Karl Clinger, or the various other "fake" or duplicate profiles.

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  2. SO I am confused, is the birth live project a good thing if Brio/Kylomi aren't involved?

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    1. Well I guess that is a personal opinion. My opinion is that it ISN'T a good idea for several reasons.

      First, birth is unpredictable. You had better believe that this "birthLIVE" thing is on Dr A's radar as well as the radar of other natural birth critics. So what if a woman having a homebirth has a hemmorhage, or a dystocia, or God forbid, has a perinatal death? That is streaming LIVE.

      Second, and I almost think more important, is that the mom IS going to be impacted by having those cameras around. I live in an area where many episodes of "A Baby Story" have been filmed--some were filmed at the hospital that my first two babies were born. But the midwife who attended my 3rd and 4th births would not allow her clients to be filmed for the show specifically because of the impact the cameras have on the process.

      Not that I think filming birth is always wrong. But it is problematic when the mother really does not have final control over the process--which is the case with A Baby Story AND with "birthLIVE." What happens if mom doesn't want the whole world to see her saying "I CAN"T DO THIS!"? Or what about pooping in front of that lovely underwater camera? Well if she is being filmed for making something to be used LATER, she can ask for that to be editted out. But with A Baby Story she can only hope that the producers will cut it (not likely if she's screaming "I can't do this!!!"--that's the drama they want!). With the live streaming...well it's out there before she can even say "no! I need that to be private!" So the result is that she is going to be self editting during labor--modifying her behavior from how she really would act if she were only being observed by those she completely trusted.

      When Gina Crosely-Corcoran (The Feminist Breeder) live-blogged her birth, she was in control. She didn't have a constant video stream OR a constant text stream. Just little snippets that she felt comfortable with. That's the only kind of live-streaming of birth I'd think is MAYBE okay...but I do still have concerns about the "what if something goes wrong" kind of thing. I don't think the things that go wrong should be hidden. But it is a bit easier to present them calmly if it is done after the fact rather than live.

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    2. The are most certainly involved. if you search the domain name its registered to Brio birth.

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  3. anon 11:48 - i don't think anybody cares too much about what brio/kylomi do as long as they don't cheat or scam anybody, or lie about what they are doing. the natural childbirth community is very very very small. i wish they would go somewhere else, like birth in general or something like that. birth live appeals to the greater public, not to the natural birth community per se.

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  4. birth live spelled breech incorrectly on the website.

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  5. Well the domain is owned by Kyle, so this is not just Nicole doing it for herself. Their tag line should be "LiveBirth another Kyle Thomas Scam". So since it is owned by Kyle I guess any money brought in can now be seized to pay off his debts. Hopefully another round of seizure notices go out.

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    1. When I did a whois search I didn't get him as registering the domain. Where did you find that?

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    2. GoDaddy
      Domain ID:D167272820-LROR
      Domain Name:BIRTHLIVE.ORG
      Created On:04-Dec-2012 22:01:36 UTC
      Expiration Date:04-Dec-2013 22:01:36 UTC
      Sponsoring Registrar:Tucows Inc. (R11-LROR)
      Status:TRANSFER PROHIBITED
      Status:ADDPERIOD
      Registrant ID:tuEhZszMlUyKyyGa
      Registrant Name:Kyle Thomas
      Registrant Organization:Embroin Group, Inc.
      Registrant Street1:200 S Wilcox Street
      Registrant Street2:Suite 204
      Registrant Street3:
      Registrant City:Castle Rock
      Registrant State/Province:CO
      Registrant Postal Code:80104
      Registrant Country:US
      Registrant Phone:+1.8663661035
      Registrant Phone Ext.:
      Registrant FAX:
      Registrant FAX Ext.:
      Registrant Email:admin@briobirth.com

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  6. Well, my mistakes! Birthlive.com is someone else teehee and that is what I looked up by mistake! So, then let's tell the real reason you (kylomi) couldn't take birthlive.com...b/c it was already taken! Guess he learned from fighting with the AAHCC that he'd loose and well, he doesn't enough money.

    But wait a moment...scratching head here...thought Karl own'ed embrion group and that kyle wasn't playing a role in it? Hmmmmm....

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    1. I don't think he has said he's not playing a role in Embrion...just that he doesn't own it? He is probably claiming to be salaried (at pennies) so the AAHCC can't get the money.

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  7. They now blaming the "birth community" for the failure and have renamed "Follow the Hoff Family VBAC Homebirth"
    https://www.facebook.com/events/221481587983859/

    It is with sad hearts and disappointed hopes that Brio Birth is announcing the cancellation of our very first birthLIVE birth.

    While we have received a ton of support and there has been much excitement there has also been a small but determined group of individuals whose focus has been to destroy this opportunity for not only the mother that was bravely willing to share her birth, for all of the mothers who could have been inspired by this birth and for the producer, Brio Birth whose desire is to help educate women everywhere.

    Surprisingly much of this destructive activity has not come from the medical world hoping to stop the mainstream acceptance of home birth and the choice to have a vaginal birth after a cesarean section, (VBAC) but from our own natural birth community.

    We have actively tried to stay away from the negativity and let our actions speak for themselves, unfortunately there are so many who let the fear and negativity cloud what they know to be good. We ask everyone to stop and do two things -

    1. Look around BrioBirth.com - see the good being done
    2. Look at our Brio Birth Facebook Page - the largest in natural birth education - and again see the good that is being done

    We are disappointed and sad that a few voices have been enough to stop this brave mother from sharing her birth with the world.

    We cannot give those voices power and we will not go quietly into the night. We are continuing on with the birthLIVE project, just slower than we had hoped, with Brio Birth will be funding the events.

    We at Brio Birth want to thank Nicole, Matt and her birth team for their courage and love for each other - you are inspirations to all of us.

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    1. All have to say is yeah, look at brio birth's recycled blog posts that are now showing the were posted a week ago and are authored by outside sources (word is they were paid)??? Nope sorry they were not!!! They are just changing the dates to make it appear. And, why are there educators on that list that are not Brio? Seriously get with it. And the new workbook...if you are amazing show it off!!! Where is the version 2? Wasn't that due out over a year ago? Nope not buying they are doing good. It is all the work of other people. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE THAT IS GOOD? And what a lie!!! Indiegogo shut you down. Indiegogo pulled your chance for funding off of the public. Your ACTIONS did that. Not anyone else.

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  8. And the list of educators has NO email addresses nor phone numbers nor complete mailing address .... how are people who want to take their classes suppose to contact them?

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