I cant speak for every group or every comment made in them but on the whole these groups are invaluable for empowering, informing and supporting women to make their own decisions in the face of a deeply misogynistic, abusive, incompetent and non- evidence- based maternity system. They even up the balance a little in a world where women are not only inadequately informed about their rights, their options and the pros and cons of each option but are frequently misinformed, coerced, abused, threatened and assaulted during pregnancy and birth by those who allegedly know best and are there to care for them.
A third of you reading this were dissatisfied with and traumatised by your births, usually because of medically unnecessary interventions or the way you were treated by staff.
I have seen at least one doctor in this thread chiming in on this. She began by introducing herself as a doctor. She then gave a figure on how many people die in childbirth. She then claimed that the only sensible place to give birth is in hospital and concluded that not many die in our country because they do go to hospital. This demonstrates perfectly why people are learning not to trust maternity professionals and why they shouldn't. Her argument has so many holes in it and so little evidence to support it that is laughable, but because she says she is a doctor, mentions death and danger and then presents her view on what should happen as the only sensible and safe thing to do she expects us to be shocked and awed into accepting her word as gospel and doing what she says. These are the casual coercion tactics that are used every day by all kinds of maternity professionals. Look behind the bluster, self- deception and pure bullsh*t and you will find very little of value and substance in these kinds of persuasive statements. But they are good at it and it usually works, because people mistakenly but understandably think that there is no reason not to trust and believe a professional, have confidence in their knowledge and ability or doubt that they have our best interests at heart.
The truth is that at least a third of births are an unpleasant or traumatic experience, usually because of staff behaviour and unnecessary interventions. The ratio of key adverse outcomes like death at home and in hospital is THE SAME. It is just as safe to birth at home. Yes, the availability of emergency medical care is useful and does help to prevent bad outcomes when it is needed, but if people start at home they usually birth at home and even if they transfer their experience and outcomes are better. However, medical involvement is usually unnecessary and causes a lot if damage and harm, inclydongbdeath of mum or baby. The figures on how many deaths are caused by or even just associated with medical interventions in birth simply arent available. But just like some here can tell if friends who avoided medical interventions and had bad outcomes, so can I tell if people I know whose babies were killed during unnecessary procedures like inductions and forceps deliveries. I also know tonnes of people who were permanently damaged physically and mentally and whose children were permanently damaged as a result of medically unnecessary medical intervention. Each intervention carries risks, usually including death of baby and/ or mother. They are most often performed because of an abstract statistic about risk of stillbirth rising by a fraction of a percent because of things like length of pregnancy or age. People need to know that they or their baby could die unnecessarily and that they or their baby could be disabled or otherwise scarred for life if they consent to the medically unnecessary interventions being foisted upon them. They rarely do know and often don't even know they have a choice. If they do then it is usually from other women who have learned the hard way that they hear of these things, often through home birth groups.
The dominant narrative, as demonstrated in this thread, is that doctors and midwives know their stuff, are basing advice on evidence and have our best interests at heart, that we should do what they say and that we should birth in a hospital. Thank god there are groups and people spreading the message that birth can and often does work well without medical intervention and at home, that people have choices and rights and should do their own research, that medical care is always available and sometimes useful but does not have to be our first pirt of call when giving birth and that we may regret blindly trusting medical professionals to take charge of our births.
Many of those who go for home births do so at least partly because they have had a bad experience in hospital and realise how many risks and down sides that there are with medical intervention. They have also learned that birth is not as generally dangerous as they have always been led to believe and that they and their bodies arent as incapable of taking charge of and successfully carrying out their birth as they have been led to believe.
Yes it is not good if people tell others to do truly dangerous things or reject medical help if it is truly needed, but whether it is needed is usually debateable.
Yes, medical care is important to have available and sometimes needed to save life byt it also causes a lot of harm and is usually not needed.
Yes, things sometimes go wrong and extra action is sometimes needed and people should not feel that they failed if they do, but it is rare in natural birth.
A lot of people get Stockholme Syndrome and feel grateful to the medical staff who harmed and abused them and people are often convinced it was all necessary when it wasn't. People become numb and feel pressured to be grateful they and their babies are alive. Like anyone withbteauma they may not realise the experience was traumatic or that they are carrying trauma. Like many abuse victims they may not realise immediately or ever that they were abused. There may be people reading this realising they are carrying trauma from birth. There is help available. Trauma informed birth trauma therapy is available. Puck a Doula or birthkeeper or other practitioner who recognises the harm the system can do and will not invalidated your experience. Discussing your experience with those who were involved at a birth afterthought meeting may lead to gaslighting and retraumatising.
I am shocked to see people saying things about what can be done about home birth groups! The system is oppressive enough without wanting to stamp out the small chunks of light and critical voices and places to go to get support and the antidote for all the lies and harm and coercion. Presumably people saying that would feel it was sinister if people were wondering what could be done about womens net forums to bring them into line. I'm sure people may occasionally give careless or duff advice in home birth groups but the overriding message is to do your own research and make your own decisions considering whatever seems relevant. They are a voice of reason that is desperately needed and all women likely to give birth ir support those who do need to think more critically and be much more sceptical about 'medical advice'.
You dont need to take my word for everything I have said. Anyone who wants to know more and decide what they think for themselves could read Dr Sara Wickham's excellent books, especially those on induction. Also a book like Why Home Birth Matters will explain the evidence around that. Those two sources would provide you with the evidence to back up all I have said and more.
Happy birthing everyone.