'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.

As harsh and perhaps cruel it may be to say, idiots losing babies and sometimes their own lives in childbirth due to moronic choices is as Darwinian as it gets.

I wonder if finding a baby's heartbeat with your ear is possible, I wouldn't be surprised if it actually is. When I was a midwifery student my mentor demonstrated to a dad to be how to find the heartbeat using the middle cardboard tube from a loo roll, similar principle to a pinard.

So does she make money from offering dangerous advice to pg women
www.laceyhaynes.com/1-on-1-pregnancy-support.html

Was hoping someone would start a thread about this. I read it in horror- I'm another who would have died if I'd taken this approach. On the flip side, however, I read the thread about pain in labour nodding away. While I was trying - unsuccesfully- to give birth to my son for thirty six hours, I was repeatedly dismissed, ignored and patronised by medical professionals. Turned out I was right and there was something seriously wrong.
The answer isn't to do what this woman has done though- and her reasons are not the same as those of us who want better care in labour. Wanting to be "empowered" is not on a par with wanting proper care and pain relief, and to be treated with a bit of kindness.
The trouble is that people like this woman, so vocal, undermine the rest of us who just want better care. Much easier to dismiss all of us as over-sensitive and demanding when stuff like this is put out there.

I would be totally for it, if it did not involve possibly compramising another life.

At what point do we think of the baby as a human being whose right to a safe and untraumatic experience equals that of the mother? In the last trimester? At the point of birth? In the hours after birth? During the following 80 odd years, in case of longterm birth damage?

Her body, her choice is all very well. But what would you say to an angry 15yo who has just found out that her need to feel empowered has left him permanently disabled?

Good grief, this woman offers 1 to 1 pregnancy support. I hate to think of the damage she could be causing foisting this nonsense on other women.

For me it's the thought of the millions of women out there right now* who would give their right arm for a fraction of this quality medical care. A scan for their baby. A university educated medical professional to assess and care for you.

For most of human history, we have not had these things and women and babies died in terrifying numbers. To refuse them... it's a slap in the face to all the women. We are the luckiest population ever to have lived and I just don't understand turning one's back on that.*

This times a million. That Aussie article breaks my heart. There are no words for that selfish irresponsible decision.

@Booksandcrocheting yes it appears so...she says of the free birthing/whatever "...I believe, no matter the circumstance, that all this is possible" No, I'm afraid it isn't always.
She also posted something on her instagram about how women shouldn't share "horror stories" about their births, I assume because it shows her approach isn't always right...

corythatwas:

I believe the only ethical position is that of free choice for the woman. Until she gives birth she and the baby are one entity. Her interests must take precedence over those of the baby, as she is the only patient until birth.

That isn't likely to be a popular view on MN, but there it is.

I am in the rather sad position of being able to say that some of the choices I made when dd was little has probably affected her health negatively longterm. I feel dreadful about that.

The one thing that consoles me is that I made those choices in good faith, because I had been told they would be the best thing for her.

If it was the opposite, if I had been told those things would put her at risk, but I'd gone ahead anyway because it made me feel empowered, I really don't know how I would live with myself.

I understand about the ethical position, Trifle. But doesn't that just mean that other people should allow a woman to decide about her own body? Does it actually mean that the woman herself has no moral responsibilities for the choices she makes?

I just wonder how you would, in practice, confront your 15yo and explain that "I knew this could kill you or make you permanently disabled, but I just didn't care. My body, my choice". It's like children who are left permanently disabled due to the mother's alcohol or drug intake: of course it was her body, but the child will have a lifetime of living with those choices. Absolutely agree that nobody else can stop the mother from drinking but that doesn't make her own decisions ethical.

corythatwas:

She does. I think this woman is an irresponsible idiot. But that's all I am really entitled to do or say.

I lost twins at 24 +6 because of placental abruption. Had I 'empowered' myself and freed myself of all hospital care and intervention I would probably have died with them.

My own take on it is that having the information and making a decision based on that information and on what felt right for me was the most empowering thing about my two subsequent pregnancies. Having witnessed firsthand the sheer horror of life slipping away from me, I don't think ignorance is to be commended.

"Until she gives birth she and the baby are one entity. Her interests must take precedence over those of the baby, as she is the only patient until birth."

Freebirthing isn't just about "until the moment she gives birth", though, is it? It is also about the labour itself, including the time when the baby is halfway out, it is about the moments after the labour where the baby (now a completely individual entity) may be stuck without lifesaving medical intervention because the mother has made no preparations. This is where it differs from a homebirth, which will still involve a midwife to deal with the needs of the baby.

I think the one thing that is clear is that things do need to improve.

No we should not be grateful for a system treats you like shit bullies you into doing things to their ideals just because without them things are more risky.

At my home birth I had a midwife there who observed me listened to me and explained things to me.

In hospital I may as well have just had the cleaner given nothing I said or did mattered. I was booked up to the belt thing and that's all they needed. I was reduced to a print out.

And no im.not dreadful for the treatment we received on the hospital admissions after as we would never have been there in the first place had it not been for the constant Interferrenve when she was born and the assumption that I knew fuck all.

I can see why people do it in all honesty even of I'd not go as far myself. But please let's not assume hospital is the safest place. It's not.

Not grateful

With DD1 I got stuck having contractions every 90-120 seconds at 4cm dilated and her heart rate dropped dangerously low every time a contraction came. I was rushed in for an EMCS which went thankfully well and I was fine. DD1 however had a severe medical issue which the inexperienced midwife who did my scan had missed and which sadly meant she lived under two weeks. Had an experienced midwife done the scan, or had I been passed to a team who could have investigated when I went to hospital because I thought something was wrong we would both be here today.
I didn't get the medical help she needed, but I tried, the only thing that means I can live with it is because I tried everything. She lived just under two weeks purely because she was born in the hospital so I have beautiful memories and photographs with her. The doctors who noticed there was something wrong with my labour saved my life with the emcs and gave me that time with her.

DD2 they noticed at my growth scan for my VBAC that my DD had grown suddenly, with my history they gave me steroids and DD was born 1 month early by ELCS at almost 9lb. Had I gone full term, especially with a history of labour not progressing we could have both died.
Lucky her that it went well this time but I wouldn't ever advocate the risk to anyone. The medical help is there and offered for a reason, if it wasn't necessary and didn't save lives they wouldn't offer it.

corythatwas:

During the labour there is a grey area in terms of legal personhood, but from my point of view the mother is the decision-making person. I understand the urge to try to protect the rights of the child but this cannot be done without compromising the rights of the mother (forced vaginal exam, anyone?). Until the baby is completely born, it is part of the mother.

When I saw the thread title I was prepared to say oh birth is overmedicalised YABU.

Then I read the article. Oh. My. God.

This drivel should be removed from a supposedly reliable news source such as the Guardian. As pp have said it's irresponsible at best but the more I read it and her stupid, self absorbed Instagram, the more I think she should be slapped with a wet fish asap.

The only reason she and baby suffered no complications is luck. Pure, blind luck for which she should be on her knees thanking the universe daily.

I say this as someone who gave birth in the water birthing suite of my local hospital, which was a perfectly "natural" birth but with the added security of full medical support available should any complications have arisen. I did use some Hypnobirthing techniques but I'm not a bloody idiot. When the time came that I felt my body was ready to push I took the gas and air and did exactly what the midwife told me because, guess what, midwives are trained experts in childbirth!

And as for refusing routine blood pressure tests etc. - what planet is this woman on. Unbelievable.

I notice on her website she says she's available for 1 to 1 pregnancy support. Genuinely made my stomach turn.

I think she paid the Guardian to publish her drivel to support her book proposal which is also referenced on her website. The Guardian must be utterly flat broke.

Echoing all of the concerns raised above - HOWEVER - for some light relief, her Instagram is one of the best I have ever seen! Please make sure your eyes are fully warmed up in preparation for rolling...

To repeat MrsDV

This is not about home birth. This is not a woman who has had a previous traumatic birth. This is a naive wally who thinks her DH shits unicorns

giant I agree that, generally, people have the right to refuse medical intervention. However, when it comes to birth, it's not just about the woman- there's also the minor issue of the baby to consider. If someone wants to stop cancer treatment- fine but refusing intervention when there is a baby involved who has no choice in the matter is beyond selfish IMO. Ultimately childbirth is a means to an end - it's about a live healthy baby being born. I have no time for women who make it all about them and their 'experience'.
The debate around birth seems to be become increasingly polarised into those who see it as something that women are designed to do and go on about 'sensations' and vaginas opening like flowers and breathing the baby out and those who see it as deeply dangerous for all women. The reality is somewhere in the middle- for many women, birth is generally straightforward but, for a significant minority, it can be very risky and low risk births can go wrong very quickly.

(MrsDV didn't say the rude stuff about her DH)

I don't think there's as much dissonance as there seems at first glance, regarding balancing the right to choose an abortion vs the right to choose to put ones baby at risk during childbirth. That's because the women who do this believe their children will be fine - they believe and want them to be born healthy. Whereas a women electing to have a termination is ending a pregnancy, there will be no baby. But freebirthers accept there should be a healthy child at the end of the birth. They just don't accept that they are putting that child in jeopardy.

Given that there's an acceptance that there should be a healthy child at the end, I don't think there's much of a conflict with abortion rights to say that to achieve this, certain things must be required/forbidden.

Having said that, and having lived in a country where home birth outside a narrow hospital-supervised system is against the law (and that law is enforced) I do think the UK's present system is best for women on balance.