Guardian article on freebirthing

[BeautifulSofa]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/dec/05/women-give-birth-alone-the-rise-of-freebirthing?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

I think this is an irresponsible article that doesn't make it clear how dangerous freebirthing can be, and pits vulnerable mums against an evil NHS. It literally starts with a lovely image of a freebirth with fairy lights and a pool. It covers several women with health conditions who have been advised against freebirthing and have gone ahead, with no poor outcome. It would be very easy to read this article and be persuaded that freebirthing is all fairy lights and cuddles, and not a dangerous choice.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/03/giving-birth-coronavirus-pandemic-hospitals
interesting article from May this year

The woman in the article had three children already

Maternity services in the uk are becoming terrifying.

A huge increase in workload and an even huger lack of staff is unbearable. Continuity is being pushed but realistically, there just aren't enough midwives to do it properly. The funding isn't there to ensure sustainability.

The recent rcm survey of midwives was heartbreaking.

and are health visitors even seeing new mums yet?

My brothers partner freebirthed for their second child, a decision I can't quite get my head around especially in their circumstances
Her first birth was supposed to be a home birth but it went wrong in labour and she was rushed to hospital to save the baby's life. She's in her early 40s and has had several miscarriages in between but decided that with number 2 they would freebirth and had no medical interaction at any point. None at all.
I know little about the birth as they don't really talk about it.
They do not live close to a hospital they are very rural so if something had gone seriously, I suspect they would not have had help easily.
However she has struggled with attachment and breastfeeding for both children and I think this is because she is naturally quite anxious about everything.
I am quite angry when I think of the risks they have taken because they upped the risk not only of the death or disablement of a child but also leaving at least one if not two children without a mother.
They funnily enough also don't vaccinate their kids and their eldest suffered terribly with whooping cough which could have easily been prevented.
They make lots of choices that I wouldn't and that is their right, each to their own however my heart sinks when they reject things that actively and unnecessary risk their kids lives.
My other SIL had a homebirth that was planned and low risk and I have absolutely no problem with that.

@1FootInTheRave

Maternity services in the uk are becoming terrifying.

A huge increase in workload and an even huger lack of staff is unbearable. Continuity is being pushed but realistically, there just aren't enough midwives to do it properly. The funding isn't there to ensure sustainability.

The recent rcm survey of midwives was heartbreaking.

I personally know a midwife who left because she felt she was being put in unsafe situations, e.g. having to care for too many women at once and so leaving them alone for too long, over and over again and she couldn't sleep at night over the worry. Which is one of the reasons why I hate seeing posters pile onto those planning homebirths and telling them that they'll be so unsafe and that hospital is the way to guarantee that you and your baby won't possibly be in any danger.

It is a tough one as there are so many different birthing experiences for people so you will find strong voices on either side.

On the specifics of your OP, yes, I do think as a newspaper, there should be balanced reporting and a reminder of the risks.

I have had 2 smooths births that could have happened at home and I have had one smooth that turned bad and the postnatal hospital care saved my baby (I was fine).

I didn’t read it and see free birthing as the answer; I read it and saw that women are desperate and having free births because of the lack of home births when really they’d prefer a midwife there. I don’t think the article needed to point out the risks as anyone considering a home birth even with a midwife is well aware of the risks; pregnant women are already treated like idiots and told what to do with their bodies rather than being trusted to make their own informed choices.

Didn't freebirthing rise in the US due to the cost of childbirth. Parents paying off the medical bill years later.

My local trust has a very good home birthing team and in all three of my pregnancies there was a push to consider it at my antenatal appointments so I always thought that maternity was swinging back to care in your home but obviously not a national push.

the article mentions pregnant people
which is very annoying

I think this article is very misleading TBH. Here we have a very well informed MC mother ,who living a long way from maternity services and with the help of a Doula with a lot of experience (although not medical) decides to give birth without any medical help.This is just a stroke of luck really that nothing went wrong at all.Many women have need of medical care, and this kind of reporting is putting both them and their babies at serious risk, if they decide to take this route

@Skipsurvey

the article mentions pregnant people which is very annoying

Bloody Guardian...

however i did go on to read this article which brought tears to my eyes
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/aug/22/what-keeps-me-going-back-is-hope-life-as-a-paediatric-nurse

women died in huge numbers in eras when medical care was not available

Women still do. About 830 women die preventably of pregnancy-related causes every day. A woman in Nigeria is more than 200 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than a woman in Sweden.

The Guardian lost the plot years ago- I would never buy it now or read it.

Free birthing is horrifically dangerous - if it becomes more popular scores of babies and women will die, needlessly. End of story. It’s insane.

or if they do not die they will have preventable birthing problems, ie cerebral palsy from hypoxic brain injuries

Yay, lets all freebirth alone in the dark like cave women, rise above eclampsia, and eat our own placentas. Pass me the paleo diet book....

I completely agree OP. I grew up reading the Guardian but these days I think it's a disgrace.

@user1493413286

I didn’t read it and see free birthing as the answer; I read it and saw that women are desperate and having free births because of the lack of home births when really they’d prefer a midwife there. I don’t think the article needed to point out the risks as anyone considering a home birth even with a midwife is well aware of the risks; pregnant women are already treated like idiots and told what to do with their bodies rather than being trusted to make their own informed choices.

I'm not always sure about the 'make own informed choices' thing. There is now so much misinformation on the internet and I know many highly educated women who have, for example, refused vaccinations for their children despite overwhelming evidence for.

I had a very straightforward birth for my first and desperately wanted a home birth for my second, and only didn't get it due to lack of staff. Luckily, as it turned out, because dc2 got tangled in the umbilical cord and required immediate treatment. He was absolutely fine, and I would have been fine either way - but he wouldn't not have.

That's what bothers me about the push for these things. Once birth comes into it, it's not just the mother's own body. Stats suggest that women birthing at home do equally as well as those in hospital. But their babies have slightly worse outcomes. Only slightly, but that's enough to me, they don't have a choice and so while I still fully support home birth, I also.dont think it should be entirely a woman's choice, when even in a straightforward case like mine things can go wrong so fast.

@OverTheRubicon I do take your point that things can go wrong so fast; I started off with a low risk pregnancy and mine very quickly became high risk and both my DC were born by c section so I’m not particularly pro home births and I think the fact that babies do slightly worse probably isn’t communicated enough. However during my most recent pregnancy I hated the feeling that I was no longer allowed to make my own decisions; my body was almost public property and things like the constant weighing by midwives made me feel like a prize cow. It feels insulting to not be trusted to look after yourself and your unborn child particularly when you then go home with a baby and have that ultimate responsibility. I don’t agree with anti vaxxers but I also don’t think the state should have an intrusive level of control over our lives and how we bring up our children.

I had my dd in an nhs hospital and had a big haemorrhage immediately afterwards. No issues with the pregnancy itself. Thankfully they could rush me to the consultant led unit and saved my life . Very grateful for the nhs here.

I had a home birth with my 2nd and I loved the experience. I did have a major haemorrhage and got blue lighted in, but that could not have been forseen. Even with this I am still a massive advocate for home births, when they are attended by medical personnel and you are not too far away from a hospital. Also home birth midwives don't take chances and they will get you into hospital at the hint of anything amiss.

Freebirthing in my local area seems to be the new up and coming thing for a certain type of woman. Mainly all middle class, mainly very much of the montessori mindset, into organic everything, very much of the "child is expressing themselves" mantra. I find freebirthing very irresponsible, but I also think a woman has body autonomy and if that's what she wants and can deal with the aftermath if it goes wrong then that is up to that person.

@ramblingsonthego I find freebirthing very irresponsible, but I also think a woman has body autonomy and if that's what she wants and can deal with the aftermath if it goes wrong then that is up to that person

I think that's my concern though. It's babies who, on average, are most affected by this. There is always risk to the mothers also, but as you say they are making their choices. The babies who are brain damaged at birth (as mine would have been, had I freebirthed my second after a very easy first delivery) or left with other life long conditions.get no say in this.

A friend’s baby was rushed to hospital for treatment for hypoxic brain injury which during a homebirth. That was with highly experienced midwives. Their baby only survived because of the midwives’ expertise, and it was not her first baby, she’d even had a previous uncomplicated homebirth.

No one can convince me that birthing without antenatal care and without any medical professional in attendance is a safe or responsible thing to do. And I can’t imagine the trauma this would cause to both parents if something went wrong. I understand the impulse, but the reality may well be different, and it’s massively irresponsible to gloss over these risks in an article discussing it.

I understand that gynae and obstetric care can be traumatic for women - I’ve experienced this myself and my birth experience did not help. I’ve decided not to have any more children and this is a huge factor. Without monitors and scans and c sections one of my children would have been still born so I would never consider freebirthing as a viable alternative.

Humans have tried free birthing for millennia. On average, one in 50 births led to the death of the mother. Rather more led to the death of the baby. This is why we have midwives, obstetricians, paeditricians etc. I wouldn't advise anyone to attempt freebirthing if they had any alternative. A home birth with a midwife present is different, though it wouldn't be for me.