[Article by Grace Emily Stark]
Original publication: Natural Womanhood, January 2025
As a certified nurse midwife (CNM) in the U.S. Army corps of nurses, Lieutenant Colonel Krista Labbe had a passion for “nurturing women and empowering them to understand their feminine genius and demand excellence in their healthcare.” This was her life’s mission until October 2023, when Krista unexpectedly took her own life, due to what her husband, Retired U.S. Army Master Sergeant Jamahl Labbe, believes was a mental breakdown brought on by the copper IUD. This is Krista’s—and Jamahl’s—story.
Krista’s quest for better women’s health solutions
One of the great tragedies of Krista’s story is that it is about a woman on a journey towards better care for her patients—and herself.
In fact, just a few years ago, Krista was looking for alternatives to synthetic hormones and their associated risks and side effects. As a midwife, Krista had an incredible heart for service and advocacy for her patients, and knew they deserved better care than what many were being offered. She was actively seeking out more information and training on better approaches to women’s health, and as a result, had signed up for an innovative hormone coaching program. In September 2023, she even attended an annual conference for medical professionals looking to increase their knowledge of fertility awareness and restorative reproductive medicine, making many friends and connections in the authentic women’s health space. Thus, it came as a shock to everyone who knew her when, tragically, Krista took her life just one month later in October 2023.
Krista’s death
By all accounts, Krista’s death was a complete surprise—a horrifying event that her husband, Jamahl, worked for months trying to make sense of. It was only upon receiving Krista’s military medical records several months after her passing, that Jamahl and Krista’s best friend, Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Sabrina Bowers (a certified nurse midwife, like Krista), connected the dots between Krista’s mental breakdown and her on-and-off use of the copper IUD—the most recent of which she had inserted exactly one month prior to taking her life… [Continue reading the full article here]
