To think free birthing should be entirely banned

Umm, maybe because a helpless infant is involved? And using your rather poor analogy, you wouldn’t think twice if you saw a woman rock climbing, trampolining or skiing…with a newborn strapped to her back?

Did you read the article????😲😲😲😲

Well no because community midwives are doing their day to day jobs- running clinics and postnatal visits etc. They can’t also work in the hospital.

Hospitals that can get so busy women in labour are turned away?
Where I am homebirths are encouraged and supported with a special midwife team that is trained and on call for that separate from those in hospital/birthing units.
It helps free up capacity for the women that need/want hospital births.

If anyone is curious why someone would consider a homebirth (I do disagree with free births) look up the scandal at Edinburgh Royal infirmary. Why would you feel safe someone even the care providers say that you aren't.
I gave birth there tje first time and if I'd listened to the triage midwives I would have had an accidental unattended birth as they did not believe I was in labour.

I’ve got zero time for women who will prioritise their desire for an magical birth experience and need for kudos from their deluded mates above the delivery of a live and healthy child, as well as their own life.

I will side eye any woman who does this as it suggests a degree of narcissism.

But there isn’t a choice to wear a seatbelt or not, for example, even if you’re an adult. And in cases of poor mental health people can be committed against their will if they are considered a risk to themselves or others.

Do you think these practices should change?

Hardly dangerous nonsense to say we are designed to give birth un assisted 🤣 it's a fact. Hundreds and thousands of women have given birth unassisted over the years. Hundreds of women conceal births and give birth in secret without any help.

I'm not saying I'd want to do it, I'd be too scared. And I'm not saying I think other people should either. But it isn't dangerous nonsense to say women can and have given birth naturally without assistance. It's a fact

Completely this. I wonder how many people know that during the birthing process, the baby is able to withstand 10 minutes of oxygen deprivation. After that, irreversible white matter damage occurs in a predictable pattern

At 20 minutes the baby dies.

Not what was said.

Have you looked at the Birthplace Study research? Or are you just sounding off with your viewpoint again?

The law should be clamping down on harmful medical misinformation. There are already precedents for this with the Cancer act, which tackles people / companies peddling quack cancer cures.

more info here
https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2016/02/19/the-1939-cancer-act/

The principles of informed consent should be upheld. Women should continue to have agency over what happens to their own bodies.

Obviously!! 😂

Adults must be free to choose even if those choices harm them. Women's bodies must never be controlled or policed.

if she has the means to pay for it.

it’s not solely about the cost of that one birth. It’s about everything else - midwives there instead of at hospital. The ambulances if needed (which has to be one for mum, one for baby), the impact if it goes wrong.

@Thingsaretight The research here is interesting. Look at the birthplace study from 2011. Home births are much cheaper than even a SVB in hospital. Planned home births save the NHS money even when an NHS midwife attends. If a woman wants a home birth and she is low risk she should be able to have one.

And countless women and their babies died in the meantime, or suffered birth trauma that effected them for the rest of their lives.

I don't think either me or DS would have survived without medical intervention. I was told his head was too big to fit through the birth canal while I was in the recovery room after having an elective c section. (Elective because I had pre eclampsia and the only other option I had was induction and I didn't want that.) If I'd have waited to go into labour naturally I would have been risking my life, and DS was 11lbs already, so I dread to think how big he'd have been had he been in there any longer.

Also just because you’re told “consider it”, doesn’t mean it’ll happen. My sister was told to consider it after a 45 minute labour from start to finish.

Had she listened, both her and her baby would be dead.

But statistically if it’s a subsequent baby and low risk factors then there is no additional risk with a home birth. You will always have people saying ‘well I was in that category and still needed xyz’ but it isn’t reflected in the statistics that show equal outcomes in hospital vs home for that group.

I agree that a lot of women (first time mothers or those with additional risk factors) need to carefully consider the fact there are better outcomes at hospital, but I still accept the facts/statistics for certain groups show that home birth is not at all risky for them.

Funnily enough I know of three NHS midwives locally who all opted for home births for their own babies.

Yes….tho maybe not quite extinct @LauraNorda? just fewer women around…. labouring women died at very high levels. Centuries after caesareans were discovered could save mother and baby even so late as C18th:. Maternal mortality was high in 18th-century England, with estimates of the rate ranging from 5 to 29 per 1,000 live births, and a lifetime risk of death for married women around 1 in 18. Causes included infections like puerperal fever, complications from obstructed or difficult births, and hemorrhage. Factors like multiple pregnancies, which were more common without contraception, and a lack of understanding of hygiene contributed to the risk. To take your logic further, why medically intervene on anything then, for anyone? Operations to set broken bones? They can eventually heal over; Antibiotics? Some infections will just self-limit; Removal of tumours? Some just go away on their own.

Well you can read..... did I say that? Or are you just looking for an argument? Who said anything about failing or succeeding? Not me..... if you have any sort of inner feelings of people being inadequate about having interventions that's on you isn't it. I didn't say a single thing about it nor did I hint at it ... nor do I feel that way. I could of had several interventions for all you know?

Dangerous nonsense. Throughout history women have, at least, been attended by other women.

Because the majority of births happen in hospital. The majority of adult deaths are probably in hospital. They are there because the are already ill, the hospital isn't causing it.

So are you saying that women who need interventions have failed at what they’re naturally designed to do?

This is why a ban wouldn't work. I know a few women this has happened to but it wasn't their intention.