To think free birthing should be entirely banned

@SouthLondonMum22 "A full term fetus doesn't have the same rights as you and me until birth. What a woman does with her body is ultimately her choice including getting drunk if she's full term which also isn't illegal."

So what's the point of getting pregnant if you don't give a shit whether the child is born dead or alive or with disabilities? I mean, if you deliberately conceive (as opposed to being raped or coerced) then surely the only goal is to produce a healthy child. There is no other objective to planning a pregnancy that I can see.

DD1 was a homebirth. Rang MW around 1.50am. MW turned up at 2.20. DD1 born 2.22am. Apgar score of 9. MW helped establish BF, couple of stitchee and checks. Left around 5am.

Cost to the NHS -around 3.5h of 1 MW's time.

Twins - advised to give birth in hospital. Medical staff refused to listen to my history of very fast labour and left me alone despite my saying I thought I was close. Left me at 8.20am. DTwin1 born 8.35. In a toilet behind a locked door. Umbilical cord broke plus he wasn't breathing. I was bleeding heavily and obviously still in labour with DTwin2. Managed to stagger into a corridor holding DT1 who was now blue and not moving. Eventually attracted attention of staff. Suddenly I'm bundled into a delivery suite with 2 MWs, 2 consultant obstetricians, 2 consultant paeds and a couple of others. Twins needed 2w NICU stay including MRI for DTwin 1. 8 weeks follow up specialist nursing care at home. 18 months of DTwin 1 being under a specialist paeds consultant at the hospital.

Run that argument about NHS resource by me again.....?

A skydiving school with high mortality rates would be due to improper health and safety and therefore it shouldn’t be allowed to operate as a business. Individuals should be allowed to choose if they wish to do things which carry a risk of injury or death, whether that’s climbing Everest, riding a motorcycle, or giving birth unassisted. Once you begin impinging on a woman’s bodily autonomy by placing legal restrictions on her actions to prioritise the unborn, the slippery slope begins of pregnant women receiving criminal penalties for doing all kinds of things against medical guidance, and pregnant women actively avoiding any kind of contact with services in case their actions are perceived as unlawful - which is entirely counterproductive - and turning instead to charlatans who peddle the misinformation which increases risk.

foetal alcohol syndrome causes all sorts of issues for affected babies. Life long issues.

A sky diving school has nothing to do with policing a woman's body which society has a history of doing when it comes to women's bodies. It's a slippery slope.

Ultimately, it is a woman's choice and it should stay that way.

How so? please explain.
She said that refusing medical interventions during birth should be a criminalised.

Because if it wasn’t then there would be a lot more accidental and deliberate free births!

Because a home birth is actually cheaper for the nhs than someone birthing in hospital.

Because for a second/third time mother with no complications the risks have been statistically proven to be the same whether choosing home birth or hospital.

Because it’s far safer for mothers who birth quickly to have professional care to their door fast rather than be told not to come into hospital or risk birthing in a car.

Lots of midwives advocate for home birth and choose to have them themselves. People who say it’s just about candles and that it’s a risky decision don’t seem to understand how qualified and how much equipment home birth midwives actually bring with them and how fast they are to transfer you if there’s a hint of an issue.

Please give me a good fact as to why it SHOULDN'T it be an option in your eyes?

I live miles from a hospital and the traffic into the nearest town with a hospital is really bad

Are you aware of the death rate in poor countries where women and their babies don't have access to medical care during childbirth?

Well no... because if a mother dies following childbirth, then the baby has already been born...

Do you understand how evolution and extinction work?

You think humans were alive millions of years ago 😂
There has been medical intervention in birth for thousands of years, the Egyptians used forceps, c sections have been used for equally as long.

Please lay it out for me. Although another poster has already made a much better argument than me around medical choice so perhaps worth responding to them instead.

A full term fetus doesn't have the same rights as you and me until birth. What a woman does with her body is ultimately her choice including getting drunk if she's full term which also isn't illegal.

Same here. Those who haven't been through the trauma of being very close to losing a baby at birth can't understand the stark horrors.
My husband was left in the delivery room alone after baby and I were run across the corridor to the operating theatre for an emergency c-section, with the last words being 'not sure if either are going to make it'.

Do you really want to lose the concept of consent? It barely exists in childbirth now, but if you ban free birthing, women will lose any rights they now have.

You don’t see how they’re different?

It is clear legally and morally that the mother has consent over her own medical care and this is an absolute. Look at the shit show created in countries without this principle.

Women who are empowered to be part of their own medical care can make evidence based safe choices. There are many problems with our maternity services and they all come from not putting women’s well being at the heart of care. The rise of free birth narratives is inevitable when medical care has been so poor. Both are a huge issue and taking women’s rights away won’t make anyone’s health or medical care better.

Well, for similar reasons that palliative home care is offered. Because it many circumstances it can be beneficial for people and their families Should everyone with a serious illness be in a hospice?

The unassisted / natural birth crowd are all about survival numbers, and not about individual women's suffering. Much like the worst of patriarchal thinking, actually.

Absolutely. I also think we have so much further to go in making hospital births safe and caring and not dehumanising with far too many incidences of women being violated without their consent. I'd like to think if the overwhelming majority of women who had hospital births were given proper, informed choices in their care with good levels of compassionate staffing etc then fewer people would make irrational and dangerous decisions like freebirthing.

My first hospital birth was such a traumatic shit show, I can really understand why some women opt out. Also, both my baby and me might have died during my hospital birth had my husband not constantly advocated for us.

Because people have right to some choice in their care?

Right let's take another example
When I was younger I had some pretty bad skin issues
I was given some options for care ranging from antibiotics, topical something and roaccutane. The choice which one I wanted to try was mine and I made that choice guided by the dermatologist.

Another example
My mother had breast cancer. It was caught early so she was lucky in that she had some options in her care. They could remove the lump and some extra tissue and give radiation which would be an easier recovery bit require longer monitoring or they could do a slightly more aggressive approach (I forget the exact details as she didn't choose this). Guided by her care providers she made a choice for her own care.

Do you understand this? People have choices in their care.

Also as I've mentioned before homebirths can help free up capacity in the hospitals to help avoid situations like being turned away to another hospital an hour away or giving birth in triage.

To summarise choice guided by medical professionals is a good thing. Although you may just be one of those people that struggle to understand when other people feel differently to you.

God that is so sad @Fundays12 A baby's life ruined because of ignorance, and stupidity, quite frankly.

I'm not sure if it was a no medical staff scenario, but a hippy woman who moved to my rural area opted to have a home birth, first time, older mother. She was into all the things you'd expect - holistic 'natural' treatments, making posts on Instagram saying how women have been scared into hospital births, it's mostly patriarchal scaremongering and on and on.

I noticed she was quiet for a while online, and a few weeks after birth posted that she and her baby were in such a dire position that she had to be rushed into hospital and were in danger of not surviving. Either her, her baby, or both, can't remember now. She lives at least 45mins from the nearest hospital, so it would have taken them a while to get there and then get her back to the hospital. I can't remember her exact wording, but it seems like she was tramuatised by the whole, event, not surprisingly and it was so far from the home waterbirth + candles type scenario she had planned for.

Broadly I think women should be able to take risks with their own bodies

The state doesn't agree with you. And it's not just women - all adults are restricted in what they can do with their own body.

Why SHOULD it be there?