Induction

I had a shit medicalised hospital birth first time round, then read Kitzinger's Birth Your Way and cried as I realised it was entirely unnecessary. I then had an independent midwife - the same at every antenatal appointment, labour and part natal visits. And there were lots of AN and PN visits. I felt totally supported and at ease. After the first birth i was in so much physical pain as well as mental. I was so angry at DH for not supporting me. It was barbaric and the post natal care was dangerously dire. After my IM births I could have run a marathon I'm really not into hippy stuff but the female support - including all the information passed on- during pregnancy from the IM made it all possible.

The NHS is not quite as bad as some places for medicalised birth. Privatised systems naturally favour intervention as they are profit driven. However I agree that we could certainly improve things in the NHS regarding evidence based, woman centred care. I agree wholeheartedly with a lot of what Milli Hill says in her book, it is well worth a read.

What’s your preferred alternative for women with hypertension or other complications, would it be better if they got ill, or worse, because that’s more natural? What about their babies? There are lots of people talking about more natural birth, I heard nothing but “natural is best” during my pregnancy. The Royal College of Midwives agree with you. If you had a traumatic birth or felt disrespected you can ask for counselling or give feedback to your birth team, it is well worth it. Maybe consider a doula for your next birth if you don’t have a birth partner who is a strong advocate for your preferences? But please, please think about the implications of what you are asking for, for those women and their babies who do need medical help. I hope you find ways to channel your anger into the right places without hurting others (responding to that consultation sounds like a great idea), and I hope your next birth, if you are planning one, is more what you had hoped for.

Also Milli Hill wrote a book about it - “give birth like a feminist”. There are other books too, “Birth without violence” is an old one but perhaps still relevant. Anything by Ina May Gaskin, Michel Odent, Sheila Kitzinger.

Try the website of Sara Wickham for up date research on interventions.

With the new Nice IOL guidelines if they get approved things will get worse from an induction point of view. There is already a bit of a push back against this as some midwives are saying it’s too medicalised.

But how do you draw a balance. On one hand it seems more intervention for some will save their unborn child. But it will also for a larger number of women increase their intervention and result in more sections, instrumental births, pph, epidurals, etc. I certainly think there needs to be more of a conversation and informed choice surrounding induction.

Maternity care was totally women-led until two things happened: the invention of forceps (by a French man IIRC) and the use of chloroform (aka Twilight Birth) for pain relief.

The inventor of forceps kept the details of his invention secret, and only wealthy people could afford his services, which made this intervention socially respectable.

Similarly, Queen Victoria's use of chloroform during childbirth gave it social acceptance.

Both of these developments were driven by men who kept a ' close shop' with other medical colleagues - all male, of course. And both of these developments require the labouring woman to labour on her back. Until then women had laboured and given birth in up right positions.

So these developments, while otherwise helpful for women in labour, changed her support by women to instruction by men, while simultaneously putting her into the most vulnerable and unhelpful position.

Women are talking about it, though it closes tonight you might be interested in this OP.

Government Women’s Health Consultation www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4186491-Government-Women-s-Health-Consultation

Because it's solely a women's issue and they aren't popular or important to men who tend to be in positions to make changes.

I think maternity and post natal care clearly need a lot more money and to be more woman centred. Having said that, there is a need for some element of a medical process - tests, scans, monitoring of bp, foetal heartbeat etc are all totally reasonable things to do.

@RaeRaeMama Some people need the medical intervention though 🤔 Did you have a particularly hard time with your first? Or do you just feel like you didn’t have the knowledge about what was going on?