'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.

The Guardian has such form at the moment for publishing so many really WTF things about pregnancy/childbirth/parenting I'm starting to wonder if the editor has some kind of agenda to drive down population growth

Does anyone actually know the statistics of complications vs complications caused by medical intervention?

I mean obviously things like breech babies and eruptions etc do not happen as a result of venue or people present

But progression can be slowed by being unable to move (can't move if hooked up to monitors or drips and those belt things)

Exhaustion and stress also contribute. Wards are noisy and having people ignore you and being unable to have someone there is stressful ( partners/friends etc often sent home)

Refusal or pushing of pain relief. There are risks to that too.

Staff changes- you never know who the fuck you are going to get and no one bothers to introduce themselves.

Positions can make things more painful so if you are restricted to lying down then you could end up taking epidurals or something that given more mobility/options you otherwise would have been able to cope without.

Surely there are a large percentage if people some even on this thread who's complications could directly or indirectly be caused by the hospital itself.

(Disclaimer I'm saying some not all. There are if course plenty of people who genuinely wouldn't be here nor their babies)

corythatwas:

I certainly don't think she has a 'right' to publish in a national paper. But the national paper has a right to publish what the heck they like, notwithstanding libel and national security!

ButteredParsnip

The Homerton (excellent neonatal dept, incidentally)

I have had 2 home births and they are in no way shape or form 'free births'. I would not consider a 'free birth', I think it is silly and irresponsible to refuse midwifery support. A home birth is a sensible and valid choice that should be available to all women to consider. The midwives present at my births were wonderful, professional and experienced. They did not actually have to do much for me (I also had a natural third stage) but they were there if I needed them. To choose to forgo that knowledgeable support seems mad to me.

CoteDAzur and Homity my first midwives appintment was 40 weeks before DC1 arrived (with rather long fingernails). We didn't need to consider inducing as I was able to have daily monitoring at the place where my Consultant was based and all appeared to be fine (if behind schedule). The next DC was a week early which was stressful in a different way!!

in theory, I respect people's rights to made medical decisions for themselves as long as they have been informed of the consequences (and they are Fraser/Gillick competent). And I feel that the rights of a foetus should not be put before the rights of the mother

Agree. The problem is that it is incredibly difficult to be truly informed about birth until you have been through it or at least witnessed it. I think most women who have given birth would say that their expectations were very different from the reality. As an HCP, I believe it is every women's right to do want she wants with her body, even if it puts the foetus at risk. However, when consenting women about labour choices before their first delivery (I used to work in intensive care), I often had the uncomfortable feeling that they were not making a truly informed choice, despite everyone - including the patient - trying their best to make it informed. It feels like trying to get someone who has never even seen a plane to make an informed choice about doing a parachute jump. And I don't mean that women are stupid or foolhardy - only that it is very hard to appreciate what labour is like before your first one.

I don't think there is a perfect solution to this. Ultimately people have the right to make choices that I, as their doctor, might consider foolish.

But I do agree very much that there is a danger in letting words like "allowing" and "forbidding" slip into the discourse.

I've been thinking about this though and I think we shouldn't be afraid of the debate. In my last comment I blithely declared that the number of babies and women injured by birth choices made contrary to medical opinion are small. But are they? Maybe not. How can we quantify the psychological damage of pressuring (though non-coercive shaming, like this thread, or through straightforward threat of legal prosecution, as in many other countries) women to birth in what medical science says is the safest way?

But we should be asking these questions. We shouldn't be afraid of the answers. I instinctively feel that the UK system is best (and I have given birth here and under a much more restricted regime) but I think we need more than "instinct" here.

If I never put my children in seat belts or car seats, I would be prosecuted. But the danger to them of a trip to shops unrestrained is so much less than a trip down the birth canal with nobody to check their heart rate, placental position, or APGAR score.

The difference is the psychological damage it would cause to force me to be examined. But why is that unacceptable, but the psychological damage of everyone on this thread calling me stupid, a bad mother, and having every medical professional I meet tell me how dangerous this is, is all right?

I feel entirely at ease with a midwife who says, "Can I examine you now?" I feel incredibly on edge and anxious when a midwife says, "I am going to..." or "I need you to..." That probably sounds precious. blush I will always do what is right for my baby but there really is no need for HCPs to use imperative or declarative language

Totally agree (other than in genuine emergencies). And HCPs need to recognise that making women feel at ease and as in control as possible is part of ensuring a safe environment for labour.

Great post shiny

What I have read about the hospital system is enough to frighten anyone away.

If I ever get pregnant and give birth (and it increasingly becomes an IF) it'll be with a midwife, at home, and with no males present except the father of the baby, if that.
(Probably won't have any children, considering how midwives are driven out of work where I live, by a system that clearly wants to force women into hospitals.)

Not having scans is something I can't understand, as it doesn't seem particularly invasive, but then, I haven't been through the system (yet).

If some women refuse all medical intervention because they feel so humiliated by the medical system, then perhaps it is high fucking time that a lot of things are changed!

. But why is that unacceptable, but the psychological damage of everyone on this thread calling me stupid, a bad mother, and having every medical professional I meet tell me how dangerous this is, is all right?

Because it compromises one of the most fundamental principles of medical ethics: the importance of informed consent.

If I can be forcibly examined, can I be forcibly knocked out and given a c-section? Can I be required to give my child a kidney?

In only my anecdotal experience, most first time mothers I know trust medical staff and often want to birth in/near the hospital, believing that that is the safest place for them and their baby.

The ones who don't want to set foot in hospital and are scared of medical intervention are the ones, like me, who have previously given birth.

Yes this women was a first time mother so I can see how you might argue she was not in a position to really understand her choices, however, there are very many women in this country being pushed towards the anti-medical-birth movement by the treatment they have previously received.

If you read the hypnobirthing book by Marie Mongan that was exactly her experience - two horrendous over medicalised births before she thought there has to be a better way.

Dismissing and trivialising women who are tempted to refuse medical care only pushes such women further from seeking medical care. Any truly caring health system should be looking to support and engage with them not sneer and enjoy looking down their nose at 'stupid reckless women'.

The point has been made by several posters that home birth and free birthing are NOT the same and that's absolutely right.

I do think there's some bleeding into each other though in the fact that some high risk pregnancies will be advised not to have a home birth. There are quite a few conditions that make having a home birth incredibly dangerous, and every medical professional will urge the pregnant woman that she needs to come in to hospital. But if she doesn't want to, the NHS must provide her with a midwife at home.

I've read threads on here where women with serious complications are desperate to home birth against medical advice. I think those women (who are a tiny percentage of UK home births of course, but there are probably a lot more of them than there are free birthers) have quite a lot in common with free birthers.

If I can be forcibly examined, can I be forcibly knocked out and given a c-section

Yes, if a court decides you should. It happens in the U.K., usually to women who are severely mentally ill.

I am not against home birth and I support the right of women to make decisions about their own care.

It's the fact that someone who is so delusional wants to give advice to other women that concerns me. She offers one to one support to other mothers according to her website. Surely to advise others you have an element of responsibility. If a midwife gave someone crazy advice and the mother or baby died she could be struck off. I get the feeling if anything happened to a mother or baby she would blame the mother for being negative and bringing it on herself with her bad thoughts.

Fortunately most people have the good sense to see how crazy she is.

What I have read about the hospital system is enough to frighten anyone away

This rather suggests, though, that you haven't read enough about birth in places where there is no hospital system. It is much, much more frightening than the NHS.

Well Vestal I hope that if it happens for you then it happens like that. It does for some people.

What if you need a c-section due to being breach? There are hundreds and hundreds of reasons that this might not happen for you in that way. The worry comes from people being so focussed on birthing a certain way that anything else becomes a huge problem and stress for them.

www.instagram.com/p/BMWuBm3Dmyz/

WTF did I just read?

HoldMeCloserTonyDanza/

Lack of capacity is a totally different debate.

The Instagram captions do seem a bit manic. Which puts her decision making process in a different light.

She could just be a twat of course.

trifle I agree with you. We cannot and should not enforce women to accept any medical treatment.

Actually batteries in poor hospitals HCPs can be just as dismissive of death as they are of childbirth in poor hospitals. It's just poor practice.

Both can have incredibly traumatic outcomes and both are always life changing (or ending) for everybody involved. But that doesn't change the fact that both are every day events.

Hence my use of the word 'just' Bill. Perhaps you misunderstood my post.

But we should be asking these questions. We shouldn't be afraid of the answers. I instinctively feel that the UK system is best (and I have given birth here and under a much more restricted regime) but I think we need more than "instinct" here.

The facts do not agree. UK has a relatively high number of maternal deaths for a country in the developed world. There's potential for improvement.
(Illegalizing home births is the most idiotic thing one can do. Any woman can always decide to not go to a hospital when the birth starts. You won't be able to do anything about it ... unless you start to imprison pregnant women, which would drive even more to not even have ultrasound scans. )