Thinking that this should be illegal?

[TyrannasaurusJex]

Basically musing over this article - https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/19/call-midwife-freebirthing-nhs-crisis-unmedicated-medical-support
I get nervous when a friend says they want a homebirth anyway, but to choose not to have any kind of trained medical professional or equipment with you when giving birth is, I think, tantamount to child neglect. Yes women can do what they want with their bodies but putting an innocent baby's life at serious risk because you've been sucked into the 'freebirth' movement? Despicable.

Sorry... was looking for the 'make margarine illegal' thread.

I agree with those saying we need to look at WHY women are turning to this. I don't have children, and one of the reasons is that I cannot bear the thought of going through maternity "care", the hell of the postnatal ward, and so on. I'm sure there are amazing midwives and obstetricians, and no disrespect to those posting on this thread, but I have heard and read far too many stories about women being treated as though their voice simply does not matter when it comes to giving birth.

Put in freezer until hard then beat your partner with the rock hard block of marg. L

I'm all for them making their own choice. No issue with home birth provided all is well. However there are some who simply don't trust the medical profession. No vaccinations for them or their children, no blood transfusions etc. There are probably lots of reasons and we need to remember it's the mother's choice, it's not a baby till its out and breathing.

While this isn't something that I would do. Women have the right to make decisions about their bodies and criminalizing that is abhorrent and a slippery slope. I'm close to having my second baby and the dehumanizing and poor quality of maternity care is absolutely shocking. Its like being on a conveyor belt where people don't introduce themselves, explain or listen. Recommendations are phrased as commands and very rarely does anyone bother to consent you properly. The thought of there being legal ramifications to refusing treatment or investigations during pregnancy is one that would only appeal if you don't understand how nuanced the evidence is for some interventions and the variable standard of care provided by the people who would be making decisions on your behalf. I'm not just an incubator for my baby and being pregnant does not mean that I am unable to make my own informed choices. If criminalized what would we be doing with these women after they gave birth? Removing their children and sending them to prison? How about improving the quality of maternity care which is absolutely dire in most areas of the UK now to help to support women to make safer birth choices.

My youngest has just turned 12, my eldest approaching 18. Has maternity care deteriorated so much that women are increasingly turning to having a free birth?

In my pregnancy days it was generally only those who were of a particular earthy type.

The BBC analyzed Care Quality Commision data and found 67% of maternity services were inadequate which meant that women and babies were at risk of avoidable harm. The number of cases of avoidable harm under investigation in nottingham is now 1700. Its a scary time to be pregnant. A lot of the issues are systemic, but my experience is that it is evident in the quality of care, in my first pregnancy i saw 8 different midwives antenatally because 5 of them left the trust. My husband and I both work for the NHS. We are very health literate and we have found a lot of the interactions we have had to be stressful and not meet basic standards of safety and compassion. I am a confident person and I work clinically and interact with healthcare professionals every day. But I dont feel comfortable going to appointments without my husband which is really telling. I think it's easy to write off people who decide to freebirth as being nutters. But, honestly, I'm finding this scary and frustrating and my trust in maternity care is low. I can see how people might feel safer opting out, even if they aren't.

I don't know the statistics for deaths from home births and margarine. Are you talking UK? Because most births in the UK are in hospital, most home births have a midwife and maybe a doctor in attendance (I also had a student midwife) so not sure how many home births are a woman with no medical attention and how many of them end up in death or mother and/or baby.

I guess to do a reasonable comparison you'd need to compare the figures ie. how many people eat margarine and what the mortality rate is, how many women give birth without medical assistance at home and how many result in death.

It already is in the UK.

The amount of people that must be snuggling it in, considering the shocking death figures attached to it, must be significant!

I’d be wary of making it illegal.

I think free birthing is an insanely risky thing to do.
But I know women who’ve had accidental home births because labour progressed much faster than they’d expected. I also know a couple of women - teenagers at the time they were pregnant - who were so deeply in denial about their pregnancies that they’d kept them completely secret until the baby arrived.

So I’d be concerned about the risk of criminalising women who didn’t intend to have a free birth, or where there’s other circumstances that have meant they’re too scared to admit they’re pregnant even to themselves.

I think it’d be much better to look at why these vocal free birthers are rejecting maternity care and to try and address those reasons. And to improve maternity services generally. One of my local maternity units was all over the local news a few months ago because it had been rated inadequate to the point where it was endangering mothers and babies.

I do agree but the continuity thing can be awkward. I had a home birth, had a lovely midwife for most of my pregnancy. She was offered a promotion a couple of months before my due date and obviously couldn't be expected to give that up but she introduced the midwife who was taking over from her. She seemed nice but unfortunately her husband had a heart attack a few days before I gave birth, she couldn't attend as she was sitting by his bedside as they weren't sure he would survive. Fortunately he did and both of those midwives visited me after I had the baby. The midwife I ended up with was a complete stranger as was the student midwife who was with her. In the end the only HCP I knew was my GP who kept popping in between surgery/paperwork/home visits. He used to refer to my son as his baby.

Maybe continuity would work better if it was a small team, 2 or 3 midwives, who dealt with you so you'd have a better chance of one of them making it to the birth.

I was prepared to pay for private maternity care for my DD but it didn't seem available outside London.

@Iwasafool I quite agree with small teams but with ds I counted all the HCPs I saw before during and after the birth. It was 39! Post natally 5 Community midwives and three students ts trailed in and out of my house, all contradicting each other and generally chatting shit. I saw three midwives in labour (not long) and half a dozen more in the four days I was kept in!

Thank goodness we are London Surrey borders.

What needs to happen is to fix why women want to free birth.

I’m all for homebirth because my first experience of the maternity unit put me right off, and I home birthed my second and only went in with my third (homebirth tream already called out sadly) because I was promised I would not have to stay over night or even step foot on ward providing everything was fine with delivery and baby.

The thought did cross my mind to just stay home and have the ambulance come out though I so did not want to be in that hospital. Fix the problem at the base which tends to be the actual care given and attitudes towards women in labour / giving birth and postnatally.

I do worry when I hear somebody is having a home birth. I've never actually known anyone, who's planned it to achieve it. They've always run into difficulties that have meant them being rushed to hospital. Ironically, the only babies I've known to be birthed at home, have come suddenly and been delivered by the dads!
I wouldn't try to persuade anybody else. However, after having serious complications with my births I would definitely urge my own daughters against home births when the time comes.

So long as you don't give birth on a far flung island with no way of getting home, then I can't see the problem.

I certainly don't think it should be illegal. Womans bodies and all that stuff. Nobody should be forced to accept medical intervention if they don't want it.

You also have the added complications of young girls, (and it usually is young girls) giving birth, then abandoning their babies.
While it's wrong on a zillon levels it's in neither the girls interest or the babies for the mum to be prosecuted for such and act.

Stop trying to legislate everything about womens bodies!!!

I am pro homebirth but completely agree that freebirthing is dangerous thing. But rather than the first thought being how can we punish these women, maybe it should be what on earth would drive women to this? Why do so many women report hospital births as being traumatic? How do we reach out to marginalised women who are being led by nonsense on social media and make sure they feel supported? Are there deep systematic failures in the way we treat pregnant women and new mothers that they would rather risk their lives than enter into the system? What can we do to engage and support them and tear them away from online insanity?

Look at whats happening in america. Women being prosecuted for miscarriages. Risk of criminalisation will likely lead to more people hiding from the system and that only hurts the babies.

So no we should not criminalise it.

I don't think anyone should freebirth. I also don't think we should put any limits on bodily autonomy because a woman is pregnant. Being pregnant doesn't mean you give up your right to refuse medical treatment.

I think that the idea that home births (as distinct from free births) are inherently and always more risky is just ignorance (and some misplaced optimism about safety in hospitals). Other women's birth choices shouldn't be dictated by uninformed prejudice.

I advocate bodily autonomy. You have the right to make choices about what you do with your own body, whether others agree that that is a good idea or not.

It's a societal issue to ensure there is enough safe, reliable education and resources for people to make choices they're comfortable with.

Bodily autonomy, always.

When does bodily autonomy end though when another person is being born? Literally when the whole baby has been born? When it is in the birth canal it doesn’t count at all?

The idea of prosecuting a woman for having a home birth would only seem suitable if her baby died. Like most laws, the point is to disuade.

Immoral and stupid - yes. Make it illegal - no. The small numbers it would catch would be outweighed by the disadvantages to the innocent. Others have explained the risk to women in intrusive interrogation afterwards where they've been entirely innocent of offence. There are parts of the U.K. where people live a long way from hospitals and it can be hard to get there - or to get medical assistance to you - on time. In other cases there are very quick births where the mother just runs out of time. Princess Anne's daughter had an unattended home birth - presumably not intentionally.

Additionally there are good reasons why the baby has no rights until born. Otherwise we run the risk of state interference with female bodily autonomy. We shouldn't run the risk of being compelled to accept medical treatment or incarceration where we are mentally fit.

I think you've had a knee-jerk reaction to some sensationalised news. As to your apparent belief about how easy this would be to police - I am flaberrgasted. Have you not read ANY news about women being wrongly arrested and in some cases imprisoned for alleged abortions (which were actually miscarriages)? Rather than thinking of yet another way to remove more rights from women, how about considering why women want to give birth at home, with no assistance? Is it because it's better than the shitty healthcare service on offer? Maybe you could direct some of your ire at the lack of funding, adequate training and basic service in the UK?

Because having a dead baby isn't punishment enough for the poor woman?

Your experience is extraordinary. The vast majority of planned home births don't need any additional intervention.

Mine didn't. And it was a hugely more positive experience than my hospital birth, where I wasn't listened to, and I was ignored. Of anything had gone wrong in one of my births, I would have been in more danger in hospital. And this was nearly 30 years ago. We all know how much worse the NHS is now.