To think free birthing should be entirely banned

The background to any birth by anyone is nature can kill and birth is one of the most dangerous and unpredictable things women do.

Even with all the incredible modern medicine we have and access to scans and all the rest even with that ,babies die ,women die and babies are born deformed and damaged.

There is a cult around birth and when I went to NCT classes about candles and oxytocin ,I noticed the lady had a twinge of shame when after the births each one spoke of horors one a near death experience and weeks in hospital ,another a week In and damaged bladder ,another injured and so on .

Really? I think it's more likely mothers are informed of the dangers than they get pregnant and unwittingly the first thing they stumble across, before they've spoken to any medical professionals, is a fringe radical freebirth movement. I mean, almost every depiction of birth on TV or film I've ever seen is in hospital or attempting to get to hospital.

That said, freebirthing cult leaders are completely in the wrong (and should be prosecuted) for grooming and misinforming women.

Freebirth itself is inadvisable but should not be illegal or banned.

A lot of people on this thread apparently don't understand the dangers of removing consent and bodily autonomy from women, I consider that far more dangerous than childbirth personally.

But lots of women don’t understand the dangers of childbirth and that dead mother or baby isn’t a totally implausible outcome , especially without timely intervention

One should not tell one's obstetrician to 'ef off' - there are two lives at stake not one, and no-one has the right to make a dangerous choice for someone else

Women absolutely have the right to make choices about their obstetric care: I think it's abhorrent that you are suggesting otherwise. This is not the handmaids tale. Women are not birthing objects. They are people, with full bodily autonomy and capacity to make their own decisions about medical care during birth as with any other time.

Thank you for understanding this, from a mother who was subject to a violent medical assault because of attitudes like the one you are expressing.

Yeah, and I agree. Being properly informed means a medical professional explicitly saying to you "if you go ahead with this decision, you and your baby could die - you understand that right?" It also means offering alternatives, giving accurate risks of adverse outcomes and giving them a way to back out "if you change your mind, we can intervene immediately with xyz".

You could argue that the real problem is the commercialisation of birth

This. People have to consent in all other areas of healthcare (some people have literally bled to death because their religious beliefs conflict with having a blood transfusion that would save them) so the same goes for pregnant women 🤷‍♀️ I think it’s interesting how this is the area that seems to spark these conversations about consent or limiting choices…

I voted yanbu. However, i havr a couple of friends who genuinely didnt make it to the bospital in time. Wouldnt want some loon trying to prosecute them over the details of how they handled the labour..

Ultimately this is what it comes down to.

Some choices are foolish but people are still entitled to make those choices, especially when it involves their body and healthcare.

We absolutely have body autonomy during healthcare and that shouldn't change based on the sex of the person or because they happen to be pregnant.

Or you could have an alive baby that's healthy and be alive yourself. Your choice as a woman. Some choices are foolish and we should not make them. Life is not all about making choices based on body autonomy - which we don't have. Indeed, making the assumption life is all about making choices is also wrong. It's not, sometimes (often) it's about doing what we must not what we want.

Except pregnant women absolutely have that right because until birth, a foetus doesn't have the same rights as a born baby.

Pregnant women can drink alcohol during pregnancy
Pregnant women can smoke during pregnancy
Pregnant women can do extreme, risky sports during pregnancy
Pregnant women can decline tests during pregnancy
Pregnant women can decline a c-section
Pregnant women can decline an induction

Ultimately, it is their body and healthcare providers need consent and can't take that away from a woman just because they are pregnant.

The Free Birthing concept and choosing a Home Birth with limited intervention unless necessary with a trained midwife are 2 completely different methods.
The whole point of the Free Birth is not to intervene at all. Not even when it's clear something is not right (as what happened with my DiL).

That's fine. Women should be listened to. However, uninformed choice, or choice made out of a belief that childbirth is natural and a woman can go it alone and be empowered (awful word) are both dangerous. Childbirth kills. That's something to bear in mind.
And intervention is sometimes needed. Most of the women involved in the NHS scandals were not asking to be left unmedicated, they were begging for intervention before either they or their baby became very ill or died.

This article reminded me of something that happened in the early years of Mumsnet. I can't remember the specific details but a MNetter was pregnant with twins, the medical professionals wanted her to have a planned caesarian, she was reluctant and started a thread and many posters encouraged her not to have it.

Her husband came back on some time later to say that one of the babies had died due to complications during the birth...

I was shocked at what had happened. A stark warning about the dangers of taking advice from randoms online rather than medics.

This is true when looking at the species as a whole but many women died then who don’t now. I had to have an emergency section. Not sure what would have become of me if this was hundreds of years ago.

Giving birth without help is dangerous because giving birth is dangerous. Why do women not understand this? Women used to routinely die in childbirth, of pre-eclampsia, obstructed birth, post-partum bleeding and retained placentas (this killed Mary Wollestonecraft, for example). One should not tell one's obstetrician to 'ef off' - there are two lives at stake not one, and no-one has the right to make a dangerous choice for someone else. Also to consider is that home birth (which is fine) relies on the mothers who choose it being safe to do so. Choosing to ignore advice and then needing emergency help could very well compromise some other woman's care.

Well, you could say the same about healthcare generally. That's doesn't mean we're not better off as a society with it.

I do not advocate banning home births. 'Free birthing' is something else, though, encouraging women (who may have financial reasons for their choice in the US) to give birth without anyone there who knows about childbirth e.g. a trained and experienced midwife. That is dangerous. Women who have themselves given birth do not necessarily understand or recognise symptoms that are a danger to life and require medical help because they have only their own experience to go on. A home birth, however, with a trained midwife and the knowledge that outside help is within call very quickly, is ok by me - I wouldn't choose it but my step-GD was born at home with no problems at all. On the other hand, ex-DDiL nearly died in childbirth and would have done so had she chosen 'free birthing' - she was not considered a candidate for home birth (which proved to be the correct decision) - because she would have bled to death.
I would probably have died of pre-eclampsia.

It would not have gone so well if she'd for example chosen to follow someone like Belle Gibson and told her consultant to eff off.

People do this and they absolutely have every right to .
It would be abhorrent to criminalise it.

100%

I meant that whilst you are in pain you can’t think as clearly, or remember your decision making progress
You hear a lot about women going in to labour with a clear view about no pain relief, (because natural is better) or only gas and air, and then going for an epidural (I was in that second camp) and then it hits, and people afterwards feel ‘coerced’ and then You get cases where you end up needing an episiotomy or forceps or a c/section and they say it and you are so addled you say sure fine whatever , and later regret it even though it was the right thing. And then you get people who are loopy with pain and try and refuse everything

ive had one friend die from having her baby (she bled to death, even in the 21st century it happens) and of the four home births I know from friends there are only three babies . I had a C-section after a long labour and it was the right thing to do, but it was possibly one of the worst and longest days of my life

Not trusting women to make their own decisions in childbirth because they are in pain is clearly more about not trusting that women can make their own decisions since childbirth isn't the only thing that can be painful and yet other people are allowed to make their own decisions when they are in pain.

Why should it be any different with childbirth?

I am so very sorry for your loss @Lifeislove.