To think free birthing should be entirely banned

This had reminded me of a friend's experience. Her son's partner had a Doula only at her home birth. She's relatively young and it was her third but I do remember that she tore and the doula was not permitted to stitch her. Doula said it would heal naturally but I do wonder at the wisdom of this. I think she had all sorts of issues afterwards.

Just because you disagree doesn’t mean it’s wrong. The NCT do ram the whole ‘no drugs’ mantra down people’s throats.

That if you end up having a c-section or having an epidural then you have failed.

You can disagree all you like but I think they do a lot of harm.

Christ. So much wrong about this post I don’t know where to start.

Yes. And it was all fine for her. Great.

But anecdotal 'evidence' is not proof that natural delivery of a breech baby isn't full of risks.
And it's this sort of comment that led my DIL to believe she'd be fine delivering a breech baby, 2 weeks overdue because others had before her. And a Free Birth at home 'just like nature intended it to be'.
The biggest issue is the silence of women who have had the traumatic experience of a delivery that went wrong (but the mother survived).

I feel I'm a lone voice on this thread as I lived it. My son deals with the consequences of what happened every day.

It’s an NCT narrative that births are ‘over medicalised’ and the ‘cascade of intervention’ bollocks that they shove down your throat. That having an epidural is the end of the world and must be avoided at all cost. Just breathe the baby out

In our group all of us who fell for the NCT narrative and bloody Ina May rubbish all had bad outcomes such
as long labours, c-sections,
forceps.

The one girl who ignored this and had an epidural early, had a lovely sleep, then woke up and had a nice birth. Plus she wasn’t exhausted.

If I had my time again (with two back to back babies) I would have ditched trying to be bloody active and the water birth and had the epidural as soon as I could. And relaxed.

Why are home births so low in France? Is it because the hospitals are better? Or maybe they don’t have all the NCT brainwashing nonsense.

I had a horrific experience in hospital first time. I think the over medicalisation of birth has a lot to answer for it and there’s a lot more physical and mental damage than is ever considered on the basis of “baby is alright, that’s all that matters”. Extremely dehumanising of women.

I had an incredible home birth second time around which did a lot to heal me mentally after my first. Not free birthing of course, but plenty of people would have forced me into a hospital which would have been barbaric.

I think something else that is missing from the conversation here is that a lot of routine medical care immediately after birth leads to better outcomes for women and babies who would have survived childbirth totally alone. Who is stitching up perineal tears, clamping cords hygienically, checking AGPAR scores, administering vitamin K injections to newborns etc etc after free births? I definitely wanted to be stitched up by someone experienced in hygienic conditions with some local anesthesia after my totally straightforward could have done it on my own birth. I wouldn’t even have known how to check whether stitches were needed without the midwives. Again, all things that can be handled by midwives (properly trained by medical schools) in a homebirth setting.

Of course, but I think RubySquid does make an important point - what's the impact of skills and knowledge lost due to an excess of risk aversion?

Can’t believe anyone would have a baby outside a large (preferably teaching) hospital. My daughter was almost convinced by midwives to have her baby at home (soft music and candles etc) fortunately I convinced her to choose a hospital birth - thank goodness as both would most likely have died.
Of course some give birth with no problem (I did in hospital) but things often don’t go according to plan and you have a better chance of living in a hospital situation.

Basically acceptable/good/poor odds is dependent on the situation. 95% fat free is a low fat yogurt, 95% chance of survival 5 years after diagnosis with a certain type of cancer gives justified hope to patients. 95% chance of not dying when free birthing is a poor decision / should be illegal to promote.

I don’t think comparing childbirth to an obviously imaginary fountain of youth vs poison scenario is helpful.
To answer your question about why say 1/20 die rather than a 95% survival rate - because we are talking live and death in a situation (childbirth) that probably a majority of women will experience in their lifetime. And because there is an alternative with much better odds available - accepting medical assistance.
I am also imaging this on a group level - like an antenatal class with 20 women. Or my high school year group with 150 girls in my year. Imagining 3-7 girls from school dying in childbirth or 1 woman in my antenatal class makes medical assistance feel more reasonable right?

I think its the misinformation here that is problematic rather than freebirth per se. And actually, there is a lot of misinformation provided to birthing people by medical professionals as well which leads to deaths of mothers and babies. It should all be better!

But 'sounds less safe' is misleading. Why wouldn't you quote a 19/20 or 49/50 chance of survival? That 'sounds much better' and is still the same odds.

It's interesting because I was having a conversation about gambling with some of the ladies at work. I asked them if there were 100 balls in a bag, 99 red and one black, would you choose one if the black ball kills you on the spot but a red ball gave you the mind and body you had when you were 20?

Only one of them said they would choose a ball, despite being almost certain to choose a red ball. These women were in their 60s.

What would you do in that circumstance (if you were in your 60s)?

I don’t think free birthing should be banned (although I think intentionally having a bree birth is deeply irresponsible).

But absolutely every person who watches a child born alive and struggling to breathe and does nothing to help, doesn’t resuscitate the baby, doesn’t call for help, doesn’t urge the mother to seek help should be held accountable for that babies death.

No, I’m not saying the statistics are wrong, just that you’re using them in a misleading way. Implying that free birthing is not really that dangerous because 95 or 98 percent of women survived childbirth without modern medical care is poor use of statistics because a 1/20 or 1/50 chance of death is exactly the same statistic but sounds much less safe.

The statistics I linked to came from Cambridge University.

Take it up with them if you don't like it.

Well, yeah, they kind of like preventing babies from sustaining brain damage or internal decapitation where possible.

The first Radical Birth Keeper (RBK) school opened in 2020 and, despite its $<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210111061626/www.freebirthsocietycourses.com/radicalbirthkeeper/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">6,000 cost, sold out. Over the next five years, it would train more than 850 “authentic midwives” from every continent. In 2024, Saldaya and Norris-Clark went one step further, launching the MatriBirth Midwifery Institute (MMI), a $12,000, year-long “gold-standard online intensive midwifery school”

This is what should have been banned, or at minimum the use of 'midwifery'in the name. It's a dangerous scam.

I think women should be strongly encouraged to take up antenatal care in pregnancy - which is largely about spotting and treating/reacting to potential issues before they occur. Lots of it is minimally invasive too and women should have the right to say no to parts of it they don’t want.
I don’t think free birthing should be made illegal but I do think selling free birthing should be illegal. I think the option of midwife attended homebirth is a good thing where the care available and the pregnant woman’s health and medical history suggest she is a good low-risk candidate and there’s the backup option of hospital if things go wrong.
And I still think your use of statistics is poor and doesn’t really support your points.

No birth is guaranteed 100% safe though.
That's the point.
It's still one of the most dangerous things. Woman can go through.

But why are you arguing about death rates and such? The OP question is should freebirth be banned.

Nobody is saying that there should never be any medical intervention in any birth. Its nice to be able to call on it, if you choose to do so. That choice must always remain with the woman.

What I am saying is that childbirth is far more survivable without intervention than, say, peritonitis.

Do you think that women should have forced medical intervention just because they are pregnant?

Pretty rubbish if you're one of the 5%. Except these free birthing gurus seem to believe ( and sell the belief) that nobody will fall into that 5%.
My grandson did and without medical
intervention during his birth (bearing in mind he'd died 48 hours prior) my DIL would have died too. Fortunately she snapped out of the cult like beliefs at the point she discovered he'd died inside her.

He would not have died had she listened to the doctors and midwives at the hospital and not her Free Birthing obsessed Doula.

But I see now she had a MH issue which is why she clung to the conspiracy theories and myths (as that's what they were) and ignored everyone. Even her own sister who is a midwife.

I avoided the hospital based MLU on purpose. What I didn't want is giving birth in that hospital. From the unit I was in IF id needed to be transferred I'd have gone to a different hospital

arent they safer due to somewhat massaged statistics? Ie better outcomes fewer interventions because it is only offered/generally not advised against for predicted safe births which would have gone straightforwardly and minimal intervention anyway in the hospital

though obviously , it’s only a normal birth afterwards

Statistically home births are as safe, in some ways safer, than hospital births. The rates of infant and maternal injury and mortality has not reduced now women routinely birth in hospital. Midwives at home births know when to recommend transferring to hospital, and a home birth kit includes various drugs etc if mum or baby need minor help. The cascade of unnecessary intervention often results in various injuries, hospital birth isn’t 100% ‘safe’

https://www.bedfordtoday.co.uk/health/bedfordshire-nhs-trust-pays-out-over-ps20m-to-birth-injury-claims-since-2020-5357193

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-44357023.amp

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2364847/