To think free birthing should be entirely banned

Read about the risks of intervention like i said. Having intervention causes most of the problems to begin with,no intervention, less issues.
Also, you do need to have a bit of common sense, and a plan ready to have hospital transfer if needed.
But being in hospital isn't the best environment for giving birth ironically unless its actually a life and death situation, and birth isn't supposed to be a life and death situation.
Also, read up about the stats for black and brown women, are they also safer in hospital?
Please 🙄

Because intervention is what caused most of them in the first place.
Induction causes most issues, and they are not even needed.
What exactly was the reason for my Induction?
A week post dates 🙄
Look into the risks of induction and then come back.
Most are unnecessary.
Also, most home births have the calm environment that a birthing woman needs. Sometimes you do need to go to hospital, that’s not the issue but let's not ignore the facts, home births and even free births have better outcomes.
Look specifically into hospital stats then come back.

I agree with this - that is a very strange comment@sunshinestar1986, I dont understand how these examples would have worked better without any medical intervention? Like, the lady with eclampsia would have died at home, but at least at the hospital she had a chance (obviously not taken due to negligence). Birth injury also happens in complicated births, so your friend's son probably would have not been alive at all. Medicine is not perfect and there is always a human factor but giving birth in anti-sanitary conditions without any medical help present is mad. Might as well go give birth in a field, like in the olden days.

The number of people who attempt to freebirth is actually quite small.

The best way to reduce it, imo, would be to make maternity care better. Most women I know who are seriously considering giving birth outside of a setting with a qualified midwife or doctor have been shittily treated in maternity care. Whether that is poor medical care or being treated like shit as a person.

In my experience a lot of vets give their birthing patients more appropriate care than hospitals give women.

If I'd been in labour and been told there was no midwife and I had to come in, I'd have seriously considered just staying at home. Luckily, I had continuity of care and midwives lined up.

That's just silly. You can apply that to anyone who chooses to birth at all. You choose to have a baby, so it's not fair to expect the NHS to fund it, especially if you need NICU or some other expensive thing by that token.

No-one should play sports, go on adventures, drive a car, cross the road.

It costs the NHS far more for low risk women to choose to birth in a hospital. Maybe home birth should be the default and you save the NHS money by only going to hospital if you need to?

It absolutely is in certain circumstances, such as baby having severe, non compatible with life, conditions.

@mivona Agreed. We had initially booked our home birth on the NHS but they pulled these in Covid due to needed all midwives on wards. I paid a private IM.

Rather than trying to control what other people choose, why not address why women are choosing to run this risk to avoid the trauma of escalating interventions so common with hospital births?

Women want not just continuity of care. They want continunity of CARER, building a relationship of trust during the pregnancy so that they can feel well supported during the birth.

Many women want to have home births, plan for home births, and then are denied that choice because "you'll have to come in, as we have no midwife to send to you".

I'd rather put my energy into making things better, rather than exerting control.

Being aware of a family who chose to free birth and ended up needing emergency medical intervention, putting much more pressure on health services than an NHS based labour and delivery would have. My opinion is if you’re choosing a free birth you’re also choosing risk and so should not necessarily expect to flip back to the NHS because your free birth hasn’t progressed as hoped, it’s not fair on highly stretched services to go against the grain and then just expect to rejoin the mainstream because you need to.

@Philandbill Mine too. My home birth was at the height of Covid. I was told if I wanted my husband to be present for the birth of his first and last child in hospital, I would be forced to have fingers inside me by a midwife. Absolutely not.

The whole point about free birth is it is outside the realms of rules and legislation . free birth wil still happen even if you ban it.
however thst way madness lies
you cannot legislate for stupidity.
if people believe they are better off without ultra sounds then they wish to live in the dark ages. And yes. Plenty of women and babies died in that era.

I would have preferred a home birth. Not a free birth. However. At that time it was tricky to find a midwife to commit to being your midwife at home. Therefore the whole reason to choose it for me - continuity of care with someone I trusted - didn’t work. However. It would have been much less stressful for my 2nd birth. Especially as it was so ridiculously fast.

home birth is often considered safer, for certain families, and when I lived on the south coast it was very much encouraged by the local NHS for that very reason.

however. Birthing at home with a midwife is not free birth and I cannot imagine many families choosing free birthing in an equitable world.

This. It's the story of DD2's birth as well. Also not a candle in sight, just me working (labouring) to birth my baby with the encouragement, monitoring and support of a sensible and competent midwife and my lovely DH.

I'm not against home births either. They generally involve a qualified midwife who knows what's she's doing.

If something goes wrong, which it quite often does, then following the Free birth mantra of rejecting all medical help absolutely puts the mother and baby's lives in danger

I'm against criminalising it though and women need accurate information and free choice.

My post was just pointing out that a 5% death rate (although apparently it's more like 1-2% ) may not sound much but in terms of overall maternity death numbers it's huge.

I think this is more a US problem anyway. From what i understand their maternity care is very medicalised, with high caesarian rates and consultant led. Their health insurance system leads women to have to consider finances as part of their birth choices. The NHS has other problems (mainly lack of funding).

I actually gave birth in France, where home births aren't a thing but it's very midwife lead in the hospital. Basically, you give birth with the midwife and your birthing partner and they only call the obstetrician if needed.

They are massively into their epidurals unlike in the UK.

I agree with you and for sure interventions can cause complications that wouldn't occur if it had just been left alone. But it is equally wrong to say that birth is never dangerous or never goes wrong. To home birth at all costs is a problem, though may come down to a philosophical argument about freedom to reject intervention no matter what the cost.

@LeavesOnTrees As a pro home-birther I do feel many (although of course, not all) births are over-medicalised.
It is simply incorrect to argue that the natural process of birth is always inherently dangerous or risky as the 1800s statistic supports.

Is this in reference to maternal death rates ?

These interventions are what the free birth movement is against.
They argue in favour of rejecting all medical attention during pregnancy and birth and letting nature take its course.

Women in the 1800s had midwives and some medical attention.

No. But they definitely present it as the plan rather than an option, with an explanation as to why that’s the plan. And you have to sign normal medical paperwork before any procedures to show you agree you’ve spoken to the drs and midwives and understand the risks/benefits of whatever the procedure is. If you don’t agree they’d probably try to talk you out of waiting past 42 weeks because the risk of still birth increases considerably. But no one’s going to be arresting you for going against medical advice in France.

@LeavesOnTrees In the 1800s. Pre scanning etc. Pre modern medicine. Pre pretty much anything we have by today's standards.

And what if you don't agree? Will they arrest you and do it anyway against your will

current policy in France is to induce at 41+4 if labour hasn’t started naturally. Which means if induction fails they would be doing a C-Section at 42 weeks.

Though it’s a sliding doors moment. No one ever knows how it might have gone otherwise

You can't ban it. You either push it further underground or women will find a way. If I'd wanted a free birth I'd have planned a home birth with a midwife and 'oops, the baby just suddenly came so fast!' In fact, that happened on three occasions and the midwife wasn't there until well into second stage, since it took me by surprise. Not a candle in sight.

I would never choose to free birth because stuff happens, but love the idea. While I trusted my body, medical intervention does have it's place. My last home birth involved lights and sirens and blood transfusions and ICU for me.

In that case, laws would have to change. Including also banning pregnant women from drinking, smoking etc.