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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU- home birth social media support groups are f’ing dangeorus **Content warning - title edited by MNHQ**

513 replies

Namechangetimes100 · 05/01/2022 14:51

I’m in a few Fb home birth groups as I was planning to have one til the service got suspended, had an MLU birth instead and was absolutely fine! I’ve not left the group yet (probs should) but some of the advice given is fucking dangerous as hell.

The advice is free birth left right and centre. Birth at home for a pre term (35 week plus) baby, the woman did and the baby needed resus this was met with almost rapturous applause and more recently refuse induction or action for iugr. I mean ffs this advice can kill as well as the doctors = evil mentality.

I do totally believe and support informed consent and I do think that choice isn’t often presented to women in obstetrics and sometimes induction is made to seem like the only choice when it isn’t. I was coerced into induction with a ‘constitutionally small’ baby based on old guidelines so I’m sympathetic to a point to some of these opinions. But to even contemplate birthing a premature baby at home, fgs and a baby measuring under the 3rd centile and dropping and to refuse any sort of medical support in pursuit of the perfect home birth. I just don’t get it.

Any free birth or demanding midwives come out when there’s a national short staffing. It seems like a recipe for disaster.

I totally get my body my choice but seems like playing with fire In some instances to me-aibu?

OP posts:
Ikona · 12/01/2022 17:11

OP hasn't bullied anyone, she never named a particular group or person. Until the admin of a particular group posted, there was no specification.

BiscuitLover3678 · 12/01/2022 17:14

Like pretty much everything, there is a middle ground with these things. Chill people!

And EVERY woman and birth situation is different, which is why we are so lucky to live in a country with options.

MeganJames101 · 12/01/2022 17:30

There does not need to be specification at all for someone to be a bully.

Namechangetimes100 · 12/01/2022 17:44

@MeganJames101

There does not need to be specification at all for someone to be a bully.
For the last time OP was about a general trend that I’ve seen HB pages not an individual.

Does bullying include using a child with cancer to try and track me down? Just curious as for your groups it seems anything goes

OP posts:
SpatulaSpoon · 12/01/2022 17:55

OMG how is this thread still going??? 😳 😂😂😂 Who cares what others do, be it hospital or homebirth?

Yes 'freebirth' to me is a bit nuts, but it's up to them as we live in a free society.

MN is massively anti homebirth, reading this thread alone shows that.

How many posts here have been - oh i wouldn't risk a homebirth, or i would feel so anxious at home, i wanted to be in hospital in case anything happened. Oh i was low risk too but luckily i was in hospital as i pph etc etc.

That's not them being anti freebirth, that's them being anti homebirth. 🙄

I have had a mlu attached to hospital birth, was lovely water birth!!
I have had a home water birth too with 2 lovely midwives in attendance.

I am massively pro choice. If i was to have another I'd probably do hospital as can't be bothered with the uncertainty of if there'd be mws available - i like to plan!!

This thread made me quite uncomfortable with some of the real Mean Girls posts about this Doula.

It also smacks of the whole Breast vs Bottle debates we get so often on MN with both sides so adamant they are right.

What would be lovely is if we ALL could push for real change with maternity services. I 100% believe if men had to give birth and Boris Johnson was expecting, he'd find that mythical nhs brexit money and all maternity areas would be like something out of a 5 star hotel with private rooms and menu options on what pain relief you want, cross sectioned with Tripadvisor style reviews for all HCAs so we could pick with informed choice who to look after us 😂

But instead we continue to just fight amongst ourselves...😑

Think I'm going tonstart an AIBU about cry it out method versus co-sleeping now - that should be fun!!!

AlistairCamel · 12/01/2022 18:36

I am surprised by how this thread has gone and the group the story in the original post was from. I hadn’t seen it there and am a member.

All I can really add to the discussion is that I am a member of that group and i have been advised on free birth when homebirths were cancelled. For a number of reasons it wasn’t for me and I had a fantastic MLU birth, supported by midwives from the home birth team. I felt no pressure to free birth but I was grateful to learn about it. I think I posted on the group after having my child and got nothing but support and congratulations.

There’s also been a couple of times I’ve posted on that group where I’ve felt I’m maybe posting away from what the general consensus in the group might be, or at odds with the opinions of the lady who runs it, but I have never been criticised for that and none of my posts have been removed, whcih is more than I can be said for some other parenting groups (several BLW groups for a start!)

AlistairCamel · 12/01/2022 18:37

This 100%!

BiscuitLover3678 · 12/01/2022 18:49

Omg BLW groups are the worst. I left them as they were so horrific!

AlistairCamel · 12/01/2022 19:03

I was not accepted to one because I assisted my child with eating sometimes. 🤣🤔🙈

BiscuitLover3678 · 12/01/2022 19:22

@AlistairCamel

I was not accepted to one because I assisted my child with eating sometimes. 🤣🤔🙈
People were blocked as mashed some food
Reasonablewoman · 13/01/2022 03:12

@SpatulaSpoon

OMG how is this thread still going??? 😳 😂😂😂 Who cares what others do, be it hospital or homebirth?

Yes 'freebirth' to me is a bit nuts, but it's up to them as we live in a free society.

MN is massively anti homebirth, reading this thread alone shows that.

How many posts here have been - oh i wouldn't risk a homebirth, or i would feel so anxious at home, i wanted to be in hospital in case anything happened. Oh i was low risk too but luckily i was in hospital as i pph etc etc.

That's not them being anti freebirth, that's them being anti homebirth. 🙄

I have had a mlu attached to hospital birth, was lovely water birth!!
I have had a home water birth too with 2 lovely midwives in attendance.

I am massively pro choice. If i was to have another I'd probably do hospital as can't be bothered with the uncertainty of if there'd be mws available - i like to plan!!

This thread made me quite uncomfortable with some of the real Mean Girls posts about this Doula.

It also smacks of the whole Breast vs Bottle debates we get so often on MN with both sides so adamant they are right.

What would be lovely is if we ALL could push for real change with maternity services. I 100% believe if men had to give birth and Boris Johnson was expecting, he'd find that mythical nhs brexit money and all maternity areas would be like something out of a 5 star hotel with private rooms and menu options on what pain relief you want, cross sectioned with Tripadvisor style reviews for all HCAs so we could pick with informed choice who to look after us 😂

But instead we continue to just fight amongst ourselves...😑

Think I'm going tonstart an AIBU about cry it out method versus co-sleeping now - that should be fun!!!

"This thread made me quite uncomfortable with some of the real Mean Girls posts about this Doula."

Hear, hear. A lot of projection going on. Accusing others of being 'narcs' using 'flying monkeys', trying to influence others' choices and 'machine gunning' people who disagree, whilst literally demonstrating ALL those behaviours themselves. Creating a horrible bullying atmosphere on this thread, which would never be allowed in the group they seem to so despise but feel compelled to continue being members of.

And the whole thread was built on a premise that was complete fiction - that the group that was targeted pushed people to 'shun medical help at all costs'. It isnt even remotely true. I can believe there may be groups and individuals like that out there but once it became clear who they were talking about, or starting to zero in on it was clearly all built on a false premise.

I do know of a birth business that won't have talk of things going wrong in birth on their page but promotion of that company is actually banned on the targeted group for that reason. And as others have said all births are celebrated, all birth stories are posted and medical intervention is absolutely accepted as something that may be necessary or chosen. People also get pulled up for telling people what to do, making things personal, etc etc.

Its actually the best home birth group on FB. It is one of only three groups I know of where criticism of the system is tolerated and where it is not tolerated for people who were let down, abused, assaulted or traumatised by their birth for any reason to be told to get over it and all that matters is a healthy baby, or to be told that the professionals probably meant well etc.

If people can't tolerate that and only want to be in spaces where the party line is that maternity services are a wonderful thing, that the staff are all lovely except perhaps the odd rogue and that people should always do what medical professionals tell them when they are having babies.....that is pretty much every birth discussion space you would care to visit ( I mean look at MN for a start!), bar a precious few. But apparently they shouldnt exist????? It's not enough to just leave them apparently.

Also some shocking misogyny along the way making fun of womens choices and judging them, calling them and their choices stupid names, scorn at 'earth mothers' etc. Gawd. And of course everyone who thinks birthing women should be obedient seems to have a friends sister in law who resisted advice and it all went horribly wrong. The woman who's baby died in hospital was ignored. Well I know hundreds of women who DID take the advice and interventions and it all went horribly wrong and they have regretted it ever since. Some of their babies died. Some became permanently disabled. Some are carrying trauma years later that they can't shift. It is common in my world. I see it every day. But as women are largely silenced except in support groups and forums for that purpose, it is a well kept open secret and many people dont know or want to know. And the myth continues that to follow the medics is to be safe and to try to birth more naturally or resist some of the advice or coercion is to be foolhardy. It just isnt true. Life isnt that simple. Blindly trust maternity services at your peril. By all means consider their advice and access what medical care you want. But do your research and exercise your right to make your own decisions. And home birth groups can help you to do that. And the one that has been slagged off here will not coerce you into anything. That is just a dangerous lie. It is the professionals that do the coercing. Beware the bull and the tactics and birth how you want to. .

RedRobyn2021 · 13/01/2022 08:47

@SpatulaSpoon

Yes!!! 100% agree

RedRobyn2021 · 13/01/2022 09:20

@AHobbyaweek this is really interesting

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