To think free birthing should be entirely banned

But hospitals regularly send women home because they ignore the woman and tell her she’s not far advanced enough. Happened to me twice, the first time I nearly gave birth in the car footwell and the second time I ended up with an unplanned home birth delivered by paramedics. If I had had another child I would have gone for a planned home birth because it would be safer.

A midwife is still required, so the location (hospital or a home birth) is completely irrelevant.

This is really sad. Unfortunately it does happen though . A woman local to me opted for a home birth with no medical staff despite repeated warnings from midwifes and consultants that her baby was to big to deliver naturally and for her and the babies safety she should have a c section. She refused to listen, critisced the medical staff all over Facebook and when she went into labour her baby got stuck as predicted by the medical staff.

Sadly the baby suffered a life changing disability. The mum then proceeded to blame the same medical staff for her child's disability. She didn't have a leg to stand on legally as she had signed a medical disclaimer prior to the birth about how risky this was. She spent years criticising the poor medical staff online that had done everything they could to safeguard her child but ultimately couldn't stop her delivering the baby at home.

But why should they only be in hospitals? That's crazy

When I was pregnant with my 3rd the community midwife dropped off a home birth kit after 12 min labour with 2nd. Just in case. I'm the end I did go to the unit to use their birthing pool

Many birth problems are caused by over intervention anyway which is far more likely in a hospital

Yep, I agree with this. I think the focus should be on the people who are spreading misinformation, rather than the mums. I know a few people who had babies at home/in the car/in the hospital car park! It’s not that uncommon!

Well they are not that bloody competent are they if they made disasterous decisions are they

The reason I was advised to have DD2 was nothing to do with candles etc... it was due to the high risk of giving birth on the journey to the hospital due to the speed of DD1s birth. (The unassisted birth... ironically in hospital but they didn't think I was in active labour).

Midwives who could be helping in hospitals.

At least homebirths have a midwife present. Free birthing has no trained professional there.

Hospital post natal care is awful. I do feel it’s probably a factor for some women when choosing home birthing , perhaps even free birth too

Is that any different really than a baby coming quickly and you don't have time to go to a hospital

Or people could just use their own brains and medical advice instead of relying on the Internet

Also just to add something I said on the other thread if something does go wrong it’s not as simple as going to the hospital unless you live next door to the hospital things can go wrong in a matter of seconds do you want to die in the middle of a traffic jam?

Mine was a back to back baby, had been in labour for 47 hours and had oxygen mask on to get more oxygen to her. Born half hour after refusing the CS as soon as they broke my waters

I think banning it would just push the problem underground. It can't be illegal for anyone to give birth without medical presence, because that would mean you had to punish those people whose kids came too quickly! That would be madness. If it's only illegal to deliberately have your kid outside hospital, people who want to freebirth, will do it anyway and pretend they didn't plan to! The fear they could get found out, will probably just make them less likely to seek help during or after the event if things do go wrong, which will not stop free birthing, but just make it riskier!

By that it would mean no pregnant woman would be able to do anything that might be possibly bad for the baby

i just find it weird how cultish & possessive people get over women/pregnancy/childbirth. The very existence of a free birth cult, is bizarre.

Baby’s heart beat was distressed facing the wrong direction labour going on for days (the c section was a huge relief really) and not dilating. Second baby so I knew what was happening wasn’t normal.
Before hospitals a lot of mothers and babies did in childbirth so I can believe it was needed

In those cases there is evidence that the mother has attended scans, ante natal appointments etc and had never intended to have an unsupervised birth.

People can be as cavalier with their own lives as they want, but as soon as another human being is part of the equation, this should no longer be voluntary.

One of these dreadful women told a mother whose baby died that a dead baby wasn't necessarily a bad outcome.

Bodily autonomy means that if you are in sound mind, you are allowed to take really foolish decisions.

Free birthing is one of those really foolish decisions.