Free Birth

[Weathergames]

Am watching the programme on the BBC about Childbirth All or Nothing.

I had two of my kids at home which everyone at the time thought was a bit "out there".

AIBU to think "Free Birth" with planned no medical intervention or medical professional present is maybe a risk too far and possibly not fair on the baby should it need medical intervention?

I am prepared to be told IABU.

There are reasons why women the world over, throughout history, have sought to have experienced mothers and grandmothers with them during birth. And why mid-wives and obstetricians came to be.

It's all lovely when it works out, but without help to hand, even a small problem could have unnecessary consequences.

My unplanned home delivery of DS3 was completely free of 'medical intervention.' Luckily (now ex)H was there to catch him. It was very messy. One ruined mattress. It was also completely uncomplicated but very scary.

If I had planned a home birth (which in retrospect I should have been advised to as DS1's labour was 6 hours and DS2's, 4 hours) it would have been much less messy, but still too quick to have got anyone there in time. 20 mins from me waking up to meeting DS3 was too quick for even the ambulance.

If I had planned a home birth, what would it have looked like? Like I'd purposely planned a 'free birth?' Would I have been prosecuted?

Totally outing myself but I know a man who divorced his wife after she free birthed without his knowledge. He said he couldn't get over the deception or the risk she took.

She told him she had called the midwife when she hadn't and her friend 'happened' to turn up at the right time.

pantone I can completely understand the husband in that situation.

She took huge risks with the life of their unborn child without consulting him.

I didn't understand why there were a bunch of women following a Native American ritual and calling themselves Native American names when they clearly weren't Native American.

It's a bit like me pretending to be French.

All a bit odd.

Animals don't keep the placenta attached for a week.

There are women in the developing world who die along with their babies because they can't get medical attention, when they'd give their right arm for it. Try and explain the concept and point of free birthing by choice to them.
Some friends of mine run the Quicken Trust in rural Uganda. They have a project to improve maternal mortality rates and offer various maternity services, including a maternity ward at the village medical centre.

To say that it has been difficult to get women to engage is an understatement. They found that Women want to stay at home with their families and female elders and observe traditional rituals and they have had to work extremely hard to persuade people to come for even the simplest antenatal checks.

So i would disagree with your statement. Fear of medicalisation of birth is not just confined to canalboat dwelling, placenta eating hippies

Maybe, but at least they are usually assisted by someone who is hopefully experienced. The preventable infant/mother mortality is sad, as are the mothers damaged by labour and who go on to suffer incontinence, prolapse etc.

Personally I chose hospital for all three of mine. Number 2 I would have been a gonner as I hemorrhaged after shoulder dystocia. Number 1 and 3 I needed assistance to prevent mid/long term damage. And boy was I glad to have a paediatrician on hand when number 3 stopped breathing and went blue and floppy right after birth!

I remember of a case in France where parents were jailed after their baby died of preventable causes following a free birth. In the eyes of the laws his death was manslaughter.

I didn't understand why there were a bunch of women following a Native American ritual and calling themselves Native American names when they clearly weren't Native American

I baulked at that as well. Was there not a bit of cultural appropriation going on?

Any woman who deliberately sets out to have a 'free birth' is the absolute epitome of a spoilt, up-her-own-arse, first world idiot, in my opinion.

There are people fighting tooth and nail and devoting their whole lives to improving pregnancy and childbirth outcomes in the developing world, where women and babies still die in their hundreds of thousands because of a tragic lack of properly trained and equipped HCPs to be on hand when needed and yet here we have to listen the to the self indulgent guff of a handful of woo twats who think it's life affirming and 'natural' to wilfully put their own life and the life of their unborn child at risk.

EllenJanes - if you were planning a home birth, but ended up having an unattended birth (a BBA - born before arrival) birth instead, I can't see that there would be any questions asked.

When I was planning my two home births, I told my consultant (oh boy did he get frosty when I said that), and my midwives - my area had community midwives who were very happy to do home births, and I saw them antenatally - basically everyone involved knew I was planning a home birth - so if the birth had been really precipitate, and the baby had been BBA, it would have been easy for me to prove I was planning a home birth rather than a free birth.

i thought that woman who freebirthed on a boat was amazing. I loved the little ceremony she had. Her whole set up was idyllic, and it just worked.

A million miles apart from the caesar at the portland. What a depressing family and disempowered woman

I loathe the empowered/disempowered discourse that goes on around childbirth.

You know what? I had what a lot of people would consider an idyllic, empowering, hands off water birth in a MLU. Far from being empowered afterwards, I felt shell shocked and traumatised by how painful it had been. I didn't feel like a "warrior"; I felt like I'd been hit by a truck.

One thing that taught me was it was all well and good having a lot of rose tinted ideals about "good" and "bad" ways to birth (as I most definitely did) but ultimately it should be about maternal choice and mental health (I do draw the line at free birthing though - she could have EASILY chosen to have a midwife observing at the other side of the room, and only intervening if necessary) and if that means ELCS, so be it.

seaoflove I think the empowered/disempowered thing is a load of arse as it tends to set up a fail/win weak/strong good/bad thing.

There is nothing wrong with choosing an ELCS if that's what you want. The trouble with the programme was that could have been debatable with the lady in question as her husband didn't exactly look like he was concerned about her welfare and his main interest was work not her.

Like I say, the programme pandered to stereotypes and chose poor examples who aren't necessarily representative of women making those choices.

Really enjoyed the programme. I am naturally inclined towards 'medicalisation' of births (and this is after 1 natural birth and 1 c-section). We live in a world where IVF has been available for over 30 years, it is socially acceptable for gay couples to have babies and now 3 parent children to mitigate genetic disorders. So found myself wondering why a woman who decides she wants 'control' over the time and method of her birth still has to defend herself? Also think the mother chastising her given all her past infertility issues was particularly insensitive.

But the freebirth woman was interesting too (hadn't really heard of the concept or issues) however hard I found it to see her view.

Other commenters have said, the whole programme just highlights how little real 'choice' there is for women, taking into account their broad preferences, appetite for risk etc. How many women really feel they can discuss their feelings, understand the options, the risks and how it relates to their specific circumstances? Or do they just get 'so you're this kind of person and I'll put you down for this kind of birth?' as the midwife takes you the endless box ticking exercise that is an ante natal appointment. Women who want to break out of this - either through home births or more medicalised options - have to fight hard. Yes part of this is due to cost, but it's more the 'one size fits all' attitude towards pregnancy and birth and it really bugs me!

What do you loathe about it?

That's how some people feel. I felt like that after my home birth. At times the labour was astonishingly, hideously painful and I wanted to die, but I didn't die and came out the other side feeling euphoric.

People are allowed to feel how they feel and shouldn't be told that it's unacceptable to feel that way about their births, or to talk about feeling that way.

I just find this whole debate so ridiculous. It's an established fact that unassisted birth raises risks for mothers and babies.

But I just don't know what the implications are - should freebirth be illegal? If a mother freebirths and a baby is killed or injured as a result, should she be legally sanctioned?

Branleuse - I am sure that the woman who free birthed on the boat was amazing - but I think you can only say in hindsight, that the birth 'worked'. Had it all gone wrong, and either the baby or the woman had suffered harm or even died, no-one would be saying that the birth 'worked' well, would they?

I had three awful hospital births in the mid 70 s.

my daughter chose a home birth for her first one but her experienced nhs midwife was away on holiday when she went into labour and her junior replacement panicked and sent her to hospital.

It was very traumatic.

So much so she booked a private midwife and a home water birth for the other two which went brilliantly.

seaoflove - me too! Quiet, night time birth in a MLU, with pool, 1:1 attendance by a midwife (we were the only ones there!) etc. Were only there a couple of hours before baby arrived. Went into mild shock afterwards, and still feel like something hit me with a truck emotionally, some months later. Not having another child after that!

Now I've watched it, I do think the Freebirther was a batty hippy but at least she knew what she Wanted. I was far more worried for the long term mental well being of the ELCS lady who seemed anxious and terrified, as well as entirely under her husbands power.

"People are allowed to feel how they feel and shouldn't be told that it's unacceptable to feel that way about their births, or to talk about feeling that way."

That's fine, you can feel what you like for you, it's wonderful that that's how your birth made you feel, where it gets damaging and potentially dangerous is where a particular way of birthing is set up as the "right"/"best"/"most empowering"/"bravest"/"you'll only really have an amazing experience if you do it this way"/"you'll only be safe if you do it this way"/etc. way - I know several people whose PND was at least partly precipitated by feelings that they had "failed" at giving birth because the experience didn't fit their plan/expectations of the "right" way to do it.

It's like the whole "I am so strong and brave because I got through mental illness without medication" thing - that's great that you felt like that, but what does that make those of us whose illness needed anti-depressants: weak? Cowards?

My last birth was medicalized up the wazoo because I had raging pre-eclampsia. Wasn't what I'd planned, but hey.

"I just find this whole debate so ridiculous. It's an established fact that unassisted birth raises risks for mothers and babies."

There are all sorts of things which increase risk to mothers and babies which are not illegal or even particularly socially unacceptable.

It's NOT established is how risky freebirth is - nobody has quanitified it.

I would love to see some research into outcomes for entirely unobserved births in healthy women who've had proper antenatal care. Can't imagine that type of research ever being possible on the sort of scale necessary to draw any conclusions though....

People are allowed to feel how they feel and shouldn't be told that it's unacceptable to feel that way about their births, or to talk about feeling that way.

That may be true minifingers. Feel good about your birth choices and the happy outcome: fine.

What I dislike about the empowered/disempowered dichotomy is how smug some women invariably sound, especially when it goes hand in hand with judging another woman's inferior birth choice and calling her "disempowered".

Dickhead husband aside, she wanted an ELCS and got one. I'm sure SHE didn't feel disempowered about that.

What worries me is that certainly from what I've heard, some unassisted birthers don't go so much for the proper antenatal care either. Somebody recently shared a frankly terrifying link to an article about a message board for freebirthers featuring several women posting about symptoms that screamed GO TO THE HOSPITAL NOW FOR GOD'S SAKE BEFORE YOU DIE (eg some definite indications of pre-eclampsia) and being reassured that they were fine, just trust your body, don't get the evil doctors involved, etc. etc. Admittedly I think this was in the US where there are a lot more cases of women not being able to afford proper hospital treatment.

"That's fine, you can feel what you like for you, it's wonderful that that's how your birth made you feel, where it gets damaging and potentially dangerous is where a particular way of birthing is set up as the "right"/"best"/"most empowering"/"bravest"/"you'll only really have an amazing experience if you do it this way"/"you'll only be safe if you do it this way"/etc. way

But who is saying there is only one 'right' way to give birth?

"It's like the whole "I am so strong and brave because I got through mental illness without medication" thing - that's great that you felt like that, but what does that make those of us whose illness needed anti-depressants: weak? Cowards?"

I'm really not sure who you're addressing this comment to or why you're making this analogy. Are you assuming that because I found my homebirth empowering I also think people shouldn't take medication when they're ill? I don't get it?

"My last birth was medicalized up the wazoo because I had raging pre-eclampsia. Wasn't what I'd planned, but hey."

And?