'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.

Thanks agatha!

I've just read that article...we don't need that example to 'shine a light on it', really. It's observable across many parts of the world

Thanks torty for the flowers. It's so sad

HoldMe - excellent post

I would have died if I had done this. Pregnancy was easy. Then I had a massive haemorrage and septacemia.

Gawd. She needs a good punch in the throat. Mind boggles. My first DD, pre eclampsia and tiny baby, second I bled out and crashed on the table. I was very Empowered managing to come out with 2 live babies and a live me.

I just think these kinds of people are attention seekers. They can't stand that they're doing something as dull and fuddy-duddy as having a baby so they have to make it all about "radicalisation" and "empowerment".

I used to work with one of these and everything was me me me and how great I am for not eating meat and for doing yoga and never washing my hair.

Good for you, do what you like, but why do you expect praise?

I went into labour at 35 weeks. Without the hospital tests we wouldn't have known he wasn't tolerating connections whilst my body refused to dilate and let him out. So I wouldn't have had the c section. And they wouldn't have been on hand to resus and ventilate him.

She's bloody lucky nothing bad happened. His birth wasn't liberating, it was bloody terrifying but without an amazing medical team...

one involved an emergency caesarean which she later described in a blog entry as ''birth rape'', the other a uterine haemorrhage after an unassisted home birth. how can someone who has gone through this give birth in a paddling pool at home with hubby and BFF and think that's acceptable????

Yeah 'the system' .

This really frustrates me too. Same with home schoolers who say they're doing it because they don't want their children 'in the system'. Yeah, what a fucking awful system providing free universal healthcare and education.

Honestly the vast majority of the world would kill to get into that system. It seems to me symptomatic of how unconsciously overprivileged we are in the west when some people can view such immense privileges as some sort of attack. Rather than being the liberated free spirits they think they are I actually suspect they are some of the most entitled people in the world when they can sneer at such privileges.

Ignorant, selfish, self absorbed idiot. And anyone who'd call their baby Fox obviously has a screw loose anyway. She got lucky. More importantly, her baby was lucky (or unlucky, if you consider what idiots she ended up with for parents).

Had I taken this "free birth" approach, then my first baby would now either be dead or severely brain damaged (thankfully he's 100% fine due to medical intervention), and the second time around there's 100% guarantee I'd have died had I not been in a hospital and able to receive emergency surgery.

Ironically, both those births almost ended up being home births due to the speed at which things moved. I shudder to think what would've happened had that been the case. I guess DH would now a be a widow with a healthy second child but a dead or brain damaged first child.

I think it's irresponsible.
If you don't want to give birth in hospital that's up to you ( and hats of to you if you want it completely pain and doctor free) but no scans or midwives apps?
No, terrible idea.
she's lucky nothing went wrong, not because 'she read her body'.
Your body won't always tell you if there is a problem with the baby, or yourself even!
I do take my hat off to her though for the birth! Not easy, and she obviously was slightly scared, but she still did it.
I do hope if there's a next time she rethinks the scan idea.

She's an idiot. If she had no scans she could have been pregnant with twins and not known. And babies could have been breech/transverse. Probably wouldn't have been such an empowering experience if that was the case.

Honestly? That article made me laugh. That poor poor woman, having access to free healthcare but not finding it empowering enough. Well at least she doesn't disagree with free medicine! Oh, so free isn't it. I forgot we don't have to pay for medicine in this country.

She's lucky. Many aren't. So many aren't WITH medical intervention. She sounds fucking ridiculous, the article is poor, her me me me attitude stinks and her Instagram page does less about empowering women but more making this cute little self indulgent bubble because she got lucky and now wants to lecture other people in how to birth freely. I birthed perfectly fine, thanks. Free or not, my son is alive and so am I.

Perhaps she'd like to go to a third world country next time she wants to pop a sprog on social media

Stupid silly self-absorbed woman.

Yes, it's all very worthy and earth-mother to eschew medical screenings, advice and intervention when you know damned well that at the slightest hint of a problem all of those will be easily accessible and instantly available to you via emergency services. I'm sure all the 'free-birthing' - oops, I forgot, they just call it birthing - mothers in 3rd world countries with no such resources and the corresponding infant and maternal mortality rates will be soooo appreciative of this spectacularly self-absorbed and empty gesture.

Do you know what I find empowering? Having access to health care and knowing that my child has a good chance of being born alive.

I'll catch up with the rest in a moment but Isadora2007 I do actually remember that with Janet Fraser.

From memory there was a lot more there too, I'm pretty sure it was her that later faced charges over the death of a baby during a homebirth she "assisted" at. It may not be her but her name is definitely known here for more than what happened there, I'll have a look.

I was really lucky that my Reverse End Diastolic Flow was found during one of those horrible, intrusive scans and Dopplers.

I was really lucky that the medical expertise exists that allowed me to be blue-lighted to another hospital and c-sectioned at 26+1 with my twins. I was really, really lucky that they both survived - the mortality rate for Reverse EDF is shocking.

But I should have probably gone and danced in the woods under a full moon or something, because clearly my birth wasn't empowering enough!

I understand those who want to give birth against "the system" because it is based on the idea that something is likely to go wrong, that women can't cope with giving birth, heavy focus on risk etc.

When the reality is that the majority of pregnancies are fine as are labours. If you look at the figures, most mothers and babies are fine.

We should have a system which is more understanding.

I've not given birth outside "the system" and I'm grateful for the fact we have the NHS. However I didn't appreciate the level of fear which others tried to generate in me. Luckily my mum had always been open about childbirth (she gave birth to six!) and notes that her hardest was her second when the midwives were trying to keep her in uncomfortable positions. There was no respect for her.

With my first, we tried a home birth but ended up needing stitches etc as I had a third degree tear. Once I got into hospital I came across a horrible consultant who diagnosed my baby as having an infection and he ended up in special care when he was perfectly fine. I wouldn't have minded if she hadn't been so aggressive and rude about it.
With my second baby, I came across another similarly aggressive and rude consultant who suggested I could die or my baby could because of shoulder dystocia. Which is incredibly rare but you'd think it was common, the way she was talking.

This is my issue with "the system". Consultants see the worst labours and pregnancies and this colours their whole experience. I much prefer dealing with midwives who have a more balanced view of how things will work and the likelihood of things going wrong.

I don't know how to change things and wouldn't risk giving birth at home alone, but I would much prefer we had more midwives and we could offer a better service to pregnant mothers.

She will be the type using Amber beads for teething instead of actual medication which works.

My epidural was bloody lovely, I'd have that again just for the heck of it

I would add, I think free birthers are a bit naive. No pregnant woman in any third world country wouldn't go through pregnancy without help from experienced midwives if they had the choice. The issue is when things go wrong - a good midwife can usually recognise and address things and then you need more specialist intervention when things go really wrong.

Also I hate it when people say labour is a "sensation" not "pain". It hurts SO much. Why would anyone bother pretending otherwise.

Do what you want but when you write about it don't swallow a Californian self help book and regurgitate it.

I think she is a plonker, but it is interesting that so many women report hating the medical side of pregnancy and birth. I dislike being poked and prodded too. There is something about being told I 'must' have a jab/scan/blood test/internal exam that makes me want to dig my heels in as well. Let's not forget that it is, at the end of the day, her body.