To ask if you free birthed?

[36weeks4days]

I am 36 weeks pregnant and planning on a hospital birth I am hoping for as natural as possible with as little intervention as possible

my friend was discussing her labour plans she is considering a free birth. She birthed at home last time.

AIBU to ask if you have ever free birthed? Why you chose that and how it went?

I don't know anybody IRL who has had one, she is due after I've had my son so won't be able to use her experience but my mind is now wondering whether it's something to explore.

This was in the news in Ireland recently, it's not a smart move.

https://www.thejournal.ie/maternal-deaths-ireland-2-6421898-Jun2024/

Please don't. If you Google Naomi James - she is a young woman who died in Ireland not long ago after a free birth. Not worth the risk and what's the end goal really?

Both of my deliveries were complicated after straightforward textbook pregnancies. For what reason would you free birth ? What is the possible benefit? No prize to gamble for.

No, I live 40 mins away from hospital and I assume the ambulance wait times are horrendous. I wouldnt want to ask my dh to drive me dangerously to hospital because I and/or baby were dying.

I didn't entertain home birth for those reasons and certainly wouldnt consider a free birth. You've got to be supremely arrogant to think you are somehow a super woman who will never get complications.

Whilst nothing went wrong with my two births, there were also things that changed my birth plan. That was all low level nice-to-have stuff, like pain relief and water birth ideas, but my mum hemorrhaged giving birth to me, my aunt had my cousin entirely stuck for a while, a friend had an emergency caesarean and another friend had to have a forceps delivery. We're all thankful we had a midwife with us. Why gamble?

Is it your first baby op? Please don't think hospital birth always equates to horrible / cold and sterile etc. With my first I spent 75% of my 16 hour labour at home in total peace on my birthing ball. Then for the last little bit I was in a dimly lit hospital room in a birthing pool with music. It was a great experience. With my second I was induced but again it was a positive experience. I got to wander the beautiful hospital garden while contractions kicked in and that had a lovely natural and serene feel to it! Then when the contractions got stronger I got back to my dimly lit hospital room with my music.

You can (sometimes) still have a lovely 'natural feeling' experience in hospital so please don't dismiss it as an option. It's really, really important that help is on hand should u need it.

What's the Darwin quote about nature being clumsy, wasteful and horribly cruel?I'd have no desire going one to one with nature, and I'm thankful that I was born in a time where I don't have to.

Anyway, infant and mother deaths during childbirth are lower now for a good reason.

Me and my son would have died if I'd done this. He had the cord wrapped twice around his neck so was being strangled as I pushed. After he was born (by ventouse) I lost over a litre of blood and that also had to be medically managed.

No words.

I did it unintentionally with my second. All was ultimately ok but it was by turns exhilarating and terrifying. I didn't have any more children but if I had, I would've presented myself at the hospital at the first twinge.

OP why aren't you having a home birth? Surely that's the best option for you?

Nope. On the second push I felt my vagina rip and just gave up.

I needed that horrible doctor shouting that I was causing the baby distress to push me on. Lord knows what would've happened if not for that horrible cow 🤷🏾‍♀️.

I was way overdue as well, so would've been a terrible idea all round.

I think you need to have a certain measure of privilege to believe it's a good idea, or conversely have had such terrible experiences at the hands of HCPs that you've been traumatised enough to do it alone.

As someone who haemorrhaged 4L with baby number one and then did everything possible to not haemorrhage with baby number two (following doctors guidance to the letter and having extra appointments and interventions) but managed to somehow haemorrhage worse (6L and a couple of days on ICU) I would be dead if I'd "free-birthed". So might my youngest be, as the chord was around her neck.

My foremothers had no choice but to "free-birth" and many of them won't have survived the experience. I understand to a certain extent a desire to have a birthing experience free of drugs or intervention, but that's quite a different prospect than free-birthing, which is all about not having a medical professional with you. In my opinion it's a stupid decision to make and one that could all to be easily end up with a dead baby or a dead mother or both.

I'm hugely grateful to live in a time and place where somebody having had the birthing experiences that I have has lived to tell the tale. Many women weren't (and aren't) so lucky.

I’ve had 3 home births. One was so straightforward the midwife barely did anything (she even joked herself that she was unneeded 😂), but Free birthing is madness imo.

Had a homebirth, would do it again, absolutely no complications midwives didn’t really ‘do’ much besides bring the entonox and talk me through the birth but they kept us safe and had the equipment and knowledge if we had needed it. If you want a low intervention birth, talk about a homebirth WITH a midwife. Can’t understand why you’d free birth when homebirth is a viable option.

Another one whose baby would have died had I done this… after a straight forward first and second pregnancy, I honestly thought birthing my second would be as straight forward as it had been the first time, until baby got stuck at the shoulders and 8 people had to storm the room to save her, and my, life. I’m now massively against even home births having had such a traumatic experience. Please don’t risk this.

I know one person that has. It was her third baby, it was during Covid, and she is also an anti-vaxxer / conspiracy loon.

I had meconium waters, identified by midwife. I would have had no clue. I'd never want to do something as painful and crazy as giving birth again without trained professionals at hand

I don't understand why anyone would do this. Its so selfish. There's a massive middle ground between a highly medicalised birth and free birth. Medical professionals aren't the enemy!
My first birth was more medicalised than I would have planned but without the medical help its likely I would have lost DD and may not have survived myself.
My DSis would have bled to death if she wasn't already at the hospital.

Nope. Now way José. Humans are, evolutionarily speaking, balanced on a fine edge between being able to give birth to live babies with enormous heads (compared with other mammals), and the ability to walk upright. Luckily, we are also very socially focused primates, so we usually get the help we need to give birth (mostly) successfully.

I know someone who tried. Baby got very stuck, she ended up being taken in an ambulance to hospital and having a Caesarian in the nick of time.

No way. I had ridiculously straightforward pregnancies - and grew the babies too big for my body that the hypnobirthing movement likes to insist can't happen. If we hadn't both died the first time, we would have done second time.

I'm another who was assessed as low risk (aiming to give birth in the local birthing unit) and would have died if not in hospital. Free birthing is madness. If you're not assessed as safe for a home birth with an experienced midwife, you should be in a hospital where you can get medical intervention should things go wrong.

Fuck no. I had my first 5 weeks ago and despite two different antenatal courses, many videos and as much reading as I could do to be prepared for the process of labour, in the event I'd have been terrified without the help, reassurance and loud encouragement of the Midwives.

I had no pain relief and a reasonably straightforward birth aside from episiotomy so we'd likely both have survived a free birth but I'd certainly have been traumatised by it.