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.

It's western middle class privilege isn't it, opting to birth like all the women around the world and throughout history who have had to risk their own lives and their babies' lives with no option of proper medical care.

Bet she wouldn't turn down emergency medical care. But it might well be too late.

Utter stupidity.

I haven't RTFT but please, please don’t have a free birth OP. Unassisted childbirth is more dangerous for mother and baby.

FFS you need to stop being so easily influenced.

Your friend is a nutjob and I hope her poor baby makes it through okay. Tbh I couldn't really give a shit about your friend if they're that idiotic.

Doesn't matter if it's her 5th. My grandma's 5th baby died during birth when the placenta came away too soon. If my grandma hadn't been at the hospital she would have bled to death.

I wouldn't have known that what had just come out of me was meconium and that something was wrong. I wouldn't have been able to go to a unit designed for close monitoring. I wouldn't have learnt that the position I was getting in for my contractions was actually putting my baby into distress and making her heart rate spike. I was also exhausted after 36 hours of labour and would have probably given up without the oxytocin drip u had to speed things up, and the epidural that gave me some precious and much needed rest.

All that and my midwives said I had a great and straightforward birth and should consider a home birth for my current pregnancy. I'm considering it but someone I knew also had meconium waters at home and had to be rushed to hospital in an ambulance which itself was traumatic.

🤷🏻‍♀️ I definitely needed people around.

I know people have horrendous experiences in hospital , there is no doubt about that. But medical staff aren’t evil people desperately endeavouring to stop you having a natural birth by giving unnecessary interventions. I had a horrible ventouse delivery and episiotomy. If I could go back in time I’d do the exact same thing because my baby could have been harmed if those interventions hadn’t been undertaken. I think some women have preconceived romantic notions of what birth should be like. There is always a chance you are going to need a c section or other medical interventions. Childbirth is dangerous. People need to be mindful that it may not go exactly as expected . Hospital is the best place to be if anything goes wrong

I wonder this too but the doula probably isn’t responsible for anything as she has made it clear she isn’t a medical professional. I read another article which stated the doula had sent Naomi a link on Facebook to a podcast about how post partum haemorrhage is a myth. Which is caused by medical intervention and doesn’t happen in natural births. She said something like “this makes for interesting listening”

Fuck no but I did have a lovely straightforward home birth with my third.

I remember my lecture on female anatomy at uni.

basically pointed out the uterine blood supply pretty much links to the body’s main artery, and if that goes you have seconds before exanguination and death. only if you’re very lucky will you manage to stop the bleeding, and that will be by an emergency hysterectomy.

If ‘free birth’ is such a great idea, why do you think the neonatal and maternal death rates are vastly higher in countries where women give birth without medical support?

It took fucking centuries for medicine to advance to the point of actually giving a shit about childbirth and bothering to stop women dying in agony. Let’s not take a step backwards and romanticise risking the lives of women and babies as some hippy dippy bullshit.

My daughter had an incredibly fast labour in hospital with her first. The second appeared unexpectedly in the bathroom when I was visiting. She needed a poo and realised the babies head was down, we had to call for an ambulance.

In the meantime the cord was so tightly wrapped around the neck baby was going grey. The 999 operator and I were desperately trying to unhook it with no success. Fortunately the crews turned up very quickly and were able to save the situation, but we were so lucky!

Her third is due in November, a planned home birth is booked!

I agree. I find a lot of the hippy dippy type discourse around birth (there was a big crossover between that and breastfeeding in my town when I had my first so I met a fair few people into it) isn't based on hospital trauma but rather on the idea that a) HCPs love interventions for the sake of it and don't want you to be natural births and that B) HCPs alone are the reason why anyone has anything less than a perfect intervention free birth, and if you just stay away from the big bad hospital and NHS, everything will go well.

Neither of my DC would have survived.

We have evolved. Along with the bigger brains that enabled the way we live as complex societies, came a reduced ability to birth without support as our pelvises are relatively narrow, our infants born in a helpless, immature state. As a pp said, pretty much every human society has a concept of midwives/medics/other experienced women helping deliver babies. There's a reason.

Realistically though, a lot of women in those countries don't have the option to transfer to hospital like we do.

Also, let's not forget child bed fever in the past. Often caused by medical professionals who didn't understand hygiene requirements between patients.

Free birth isn't a good idea but let's not pretend that birth is risk free in hospitals. Mothers and babies also die there.

I do roll my eyes sometimes when I read posts about how someone would definitely have been dead if they'd been at home when x happened, and x happened to me even worse at home. Yet here I am.

Childbirth is risky full stop. That's why it's important to have a medical professional present. I wasn't happy with the risks taken with my health or that of my baby in hospital with my first, so home birthed all my babies after that. I felt safer for my own situation. It's all a weighing up and balancing act then hoping for the best outcome. Most of the time it will be okay but any birth, anywhere carries risks.

You won't get an emergency hysterectomy in 'seconds'.

It's always the same type of women who opt to do this shit.

They often have a birth plan that focuses on music and candles and which bikini they will wear to birth in.

They insist on no medical interventions whatsoever like they think a consultant is lurking in the corridor with some giant salad spoons ready to pounce at any moment.

They don't want any pain relief because they want to do everything "naturally" (has anyone got a medal for this?)

Then it's usually these women bleating on about how 'traumatic' their labour was because they took a couple of paracetamol or couldn't have the water birth they so desperately wanted because it wouldn't be safe according to professionals.

It's all attention seeking batshittery.

I will never understand why a woman doesn't just plan for a safe birth above all else, with the option for interventions and pain relief should they need it. Go with the flow, consider what their ideal birth may look like with an open mind for other scenarios playing out.

Or be a mega twat and refuse all professional help and support and do it alone because they know their body and baby best 😉

Your friend should also be careful. You say this is her fifth as if things just get better and less risky with every pregnancy. This is true for pregnancies/ deliveries two and three. Then things start to go downhill (slowly) with every delivery after that. Suggest your friend reads up on ‘grand multiparity’. Her risk of cord prolapse, post partum haemorrhage, high blood pressure complications are higher with each baby now. Just because it went well last time does not mean it will go well this time. Why on earth would she risk it. She has four beautiful children to stay around for.

Freebirthing blows my mind. Even more so if you have other children at home! Why would anyone risk leaving their babies without their mother. Have a planned home birth if anything OP, don't put yourself and your baby at risk.

All 3 of my children would be dead if I had freebirthed. Completely straightforward and low risk pregnancies but they all had to be whisked off to NICU when they were born (DS1 had a seizure at birth, DS's 2 and 3 both had breathing issues). I can't even imagine how I would have handled any of that without medical professionals around.

@HBGKC Autistic woman here. Also very close to giving birth, (baby is due on Thursday.) No way on God's green earth would I want to give birth alone. If something goes wrong I want me and my baby to survive. I feel him kicking me and know he's strong, but things can and do go wrong during labour.
Now, I do like a bit of hippy stuff, I've done a hypnobirthing course, I want a water birth and I'm hoping that I can do it naturally, but if something goes wrong I'll be glad of medical intervention.