'Free birthing' AIBU to think this woman should not be encouraging people to do this

[WilliowGreen]

In this guardian article this woman boasts about her wonderful birth experience by rejecting all care including scans because "it was not empowering".
Before I had my baby (she is 2 weeks old) I would probably have thought her lack of self awareness was funny. Now it quite irrationally fills me with rage.
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/28/experience-i-had-a-free-birth.

That sounds like the selfish sort of extreme crunchiness to me.

It's the baby's birth not the mothers. It's all me me me with these women.

If I had my time again I'd avoid all of that stuff too.

Painful and pointless. I thought the scan was agony.

I was quite young and felt a bit 'judged'.

Hindsight is, as ever, a wonderful thing. All presumably went well for her. If something had gone wrong, which would have been preventable had she had the scans/antenatal appointments etc etc, then her view would no doubt be different.....

It's irresponsible at best and dangerous at worst. Neither me or my baby mightn't be here today if a routine movement scan at 34 weeks hadn't picked up issues which resulted in me being induced to get her delivered asap.

It suggests to me that carrying and birthing a baby is all about the mum. I'd like to say it's 50/50 but if you want the baby it ends up being all about the baby!

They take what they need from your body. They trigger the time of arrival.

'Doing' childbirth without the modern help abd medicine available just seems very selfish and self absorbed.

Millions of women do have babies without scans or modern medicine. And lots of women die in childbirth and lose their babies. I find that fact, most un-empowering.

She didn't really free birth though did she? She called midwives out while she was in labour. OK, they weren't there for the actual delivery but had checked her over, listened to heart rate etc.

I don't understand rejecting scans. Position size and abnormalities are all vital pieces of information needed to ensure a safe outcome for both mother and baby.

I can understand rejecting the rest though. Examinations are bloody painful and births are far to medicalised half the time. Far to much intervention just because someone doesn't fit a certain formula...

If I had a third I don't think of let them touch me tbh. Being hooked up to machines meant they didn't give a fuck about talking to me or making sure we were ok.

I'd never give birth without someone present however but I do think there are plenty of occasions where interference is more for the staffs benefit than the babies

Well given the complications I ended up having and One (big) stuck baby I'm thankful there were doctors around to assist and ensure me and ds were ok !!

What a thundering knob that woman is! She didn't find her GP appointment 'empowering'?! Piss off.
I tell you what I found empowering about my DS's birth - not dying of pre-eclampsia as I would have done in her situation as I felt completely fine and healthly despite my blood pressure steadily rising to leathal heights. Without tests and checks I would have had no idea I was ill...
On the plus side, the comments on the article are hilarious - check the.one about how William Beverage missed out 'empowering middle class yoga teachers' Genius

The most important thing I have learned about pregnancy and birth (after 3 children) is every pregnancy and birth is DIFFERENT!

This is exactly what the midwife at my antenatal classes emphasised at the time.

Initially I wanted a very hospital free environment -

but after listening to my friend who worked in an NHS non-hospital delivery unit for a time, and after my friend had a still-birth after being ill advised re "arriving too early" (arrived in labour and sent away) from an NHS hospital ..

Pregnancy and birth is so unpredictable that you have to do what is best for your unborn baby, not you.

That's the opposite of empowering for me.
To me empowering is being able to make decisions based on the knowledge you have and not being kept in the dark about babies or your health.

Things I have seen that have not been empowering:

Catastrophic massive obstetric haemorrhage
Uterine abruption
Undiagnosed anencephaly
Amniotic fluid embolism
Fulminating preeclampsia
Breech extraction
Macerated 40 week + 18day stillbirth
Meconium aspiration

Do I care deeply on a personal level that these things happened because women 'trust birth' and want to go it alone in pregnancy? No, I don't.

What I care about is being the one to have to sort it all out. It's fucking grim.

Something is going wrong if women want to reject our basic (& it is basic, what we offer) help.

There's nothing empowering or glamorous about a maternal death. It is harrowing.

clumsy that is interesting. I do sometimes wonder about dd2s birth and whether I should have gone with my instincts and stayed home or whether following advice was the right thing to so.

What I mean is how much help is needed by people as a result of "wrong calls". In other words was the help you received needed because you didn't get the help you needed previously?

I do obviously realise that things happen and can't be predicted and emergencies have to be dealt with as they arise.

But I do think it would be interesting to know statistically how much intervention was actually needed (did people react too soon as they based things on what they had read and what they felt should be happening in certain time frames as opposed to listening to the mum and assessing the situation in front of them)

And how much intervention is a result of them not acting when they should have and the situation that they appear to have amazingly rescued was in fact a situation of their making in the first place.

I read the article too and found myself rolling my eyes at every sentence, always stopping and thinking I will read this maturely non-judgmentally and not roll my eyes anymore. And then I would read the next sentence and roll my eyes again.

But you know what, it's up to her. She was happy to do it and help would have been available in emergency via 999 and ambulance so why not. You could look at it in a way that she was saving the over-stretched and underfunded NHS some money.

But in general, I wouldn't want a lot of women to start doing it, I think both mother and baby are safer when there is professional help around and the pregnancy and birth are monitored in some way, even minimally.

I knew someone who thought like this...was rushed in for c section under GA when one of her twins presented breech with cord drop. Nearly lost them both. Twonk.

I think a lot of those saying they would go for no scans etc have probably no experience of when intervention is needed. I would be dead if I'd taken this attitude. All of my observations had been totally normal. Only a scan would've shown the issue.

Agatha

"Empowerment" is a wonderful thing when everything is straightforward. But it's impossible to know in advance whether or not things will be straightforward. Why would anyone take the risk?

I love that she questioned the protocol of flu jab in pregnancy. I am happy to discuss this with anyone.

A flu death in pregnancy is about as bad as it gets. Pregnant women have a horrible propensity towards catching flu as they tend to hang out with super vectors (other kids) & when they crash they rarely recover.

Saving Mother's Lives is a brilliant report which anyone can access. Read the vignettes. You won't forget them. 1 in every 11 maternal deaths were from flu. More than half could have been prevented by the flu jab. This is hard data published by NPEU & they don't publish anything lightly.

www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/downloads/files/mbrrace-uk/reports/Saving%20Lives%20Improving%20Mothers%20Care%20report%202014%20Full.pdf

I try not to disempower women but it's bloody awful when pregnant women die from flu. They have emergency sections. Sometimes at 24 weeks. The babies often die or live a few days then die. The women die. They never meet their baby. It's awful.

Brilliant article if only for the comments -funniest I've read in ages.

Basically agree with Agatha. There are harms of over-medicalisation too but there is a happy medium to be struck. As a HCP you see how fast things can go from fine to disaster. It's hard to appreciate that if you've never seen someone dump 3 litres of their blood on the floor in less time than it takes to bring in the crash trolley. I remember once arguing with a MNetter who was absolutely convinced that herbs would be enough to stop a postpartum haemorrhage. Not unless you're planning to stick a whole bay tree up your fanjo

What a load of self indulgent twattery.

My DS would have died in that situation, he needed heart surgery the day he was born, the heart condition only became apparent 10 seconds after the cord was cut and he stopped breathing and turned blue, I cannot even imagine the outcome if we weren't in hospital.

I think this is too soon for me. I would have like to reject care examinations as well.

I basically would not have been alive without it and nor would my baby. My grandma was a midwife in the 1940s and 50s she said that some of the things she saw would not make good Sunday night tv. Mothers and babies did not always survive. If you don't have scans how do you know your a low risk?

The comments are bloody funny though.

Totally unimpressed - if I had followed this woman's advice, both my children could have died. Doctors are there to save lives, not empower you. Thank fuck we live in a country where there is free and easy access to them.

Basically agree with Agatha. There are harms of over-medicalisation too but there is a happy medium to be struck. As a HCP you see how fast things can go from fine to disaster

I have had a home birth and a hospital birth.i can honestly say I did not feel remotely safe or reassured in hospital they ignored me and my notes (pregnancy complications) they missed a partial placental abduction because they ignored what I said. And I nearly gave birth on my own as they fucked off.

They refused to leave dd alone ignored me again when I was trying to tell them something important and as a result she ended up septic from a uti and left hospital on two occasions incubating another bug.

I wonder if experiences were more positive all round whether people would be less inclined to try nore radical approaches