To think free birthing should be entirely banned

[StandFirm]

I have come across this article earlier which made me feel so very angry at the cynical extremists who brainwashed a mum into an entirely avoidable tragedy: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/nov/22/free-birth-society-linked-to-babies-deaths-investigation
If I'd listened to similar cretins, I would have died in childbirth aged 19 and none of my three DCs would have been born alive or at the very least without severe disabilities. 'Pearls of wisdom' which gave me the rage include:
-ultrasounds are not safe
-women’s “bodies do not grow babies that we cannot birth”
Such ignorant perfidious lies. I hope the cult leader gets sent down for a very long time. That poor little child was robbed of a healthy body and many more actually died. I really hate the internet's ability to spawn dangerous cults entirely unchecked.

Of course, but I think RubySquid does make an important point - what's the impact of skills and knowledge lost due to an excess of risk aversion?

I think something else that is missing from the conversation here is that a lot of routine medical care immediately after birth leads to better outcomes for women and babies who would have survived childbirth totally alone. Who is stitching up perineal tears, clamping cords hygienically, checking AGPAR scores, administering vitamin K injections to newborns etc etc after free births? I definitely wanted to be stitched up by someone experienced in hygienic conditions with some local anesthesia after my totally straightforward could have done it on my own birth. I wouldn’t even have known how to check whether stitches were needed without the midwives. Again, all things that can be handled by midwives (properly trained by medical schools) in a homebirth setting.

I had a horrific experience in hospital first time. I think the over medicalisation of birth has a lot to answer for it and there’s a lot more physical and mental damage than is ever considered on the basis of “baby is alright, that’s all that matters”. Extremely dehumanising of women.

I had an incredible home birth second time around which did a lot to heal me mentally after my first. Not free birthing of course, but plenty of people would have forced me into a hospital which would have been barbaric.

It’s an NCT narrative that births are ‘over medicalised’ and the ‘cascade of intervention’ bollocks that they shove down your throat. That having an epidural is the end of the world and must be avoided at all cost. Just breathe the baby out

In our group all of us who fell for the NCT narrative and bloody Ina May rubbish all had bad outcomes such
as long labours, c-sections,
forceps.

The one girl who ignored this and had an epidural early, had a lovely sleep, then woke up and had a nice birth. Plus she wasn’t exhausted.

If I had my time again (with two back to back babies) I would have ditched trying to be bloody active and the water birth and had the epidural as soon as I could. And relaxed.

Why are home births so low in France? Is it because the hospitals are better? Or maybe they don’t have all the NCT brainwashing nonsense.

Yes. And it was all fine for her. Great.

But anecdotal 'evidence' is not proof that natural delivery of a breech baby isn't full of risks.
And it's this sort of comment that led my DIL to believe she'd be fine delivering a breech baby, 2 weeks overdue because others had before her. And a Free Birth at home 'just like nature intended it to be'.
The biggest issue is the silence of women who have had the traumatic experience of a delivery that went wrong (but the mother survived).

I feel I'm a lone voice on this thread as I lived it. My son deals with the consequences of what happened every day.

Christ. So much wrong about this post I don’t know where to start.

Just because you disagree doesn’t mean it’s wrong. The NCT do ram the whole ‘no drugs’ mantra down people’s throats.

That if you end up having a c-section or having an epidural then you have failed.

You can disagree all you like but I think they do a lot of harm.

This had reminded me of a friend's experience. Her son's partner had a Doula only at her home birth. She's relatively young and it was her third but I do remember that she tore and the doula was not permitted to stitch her. Doula said it would heal naturally but I do wonder at the wisdom of this. I think she had all sorts of issues afterwards.

Why is it wrong? It's her experience and opinion after the event?

Homebirths are almost nonexistent in France because no professional medical insurance agencies will insure the midwives for it. There are lots of independent midwives who do antenatal care and postnatal care, including home visits, but since no one will insure them to attend births outside of a hospital setting, homebirth attended by trained midwives isn’t an option.

Thank you. I’m not sure how an experience and opinion can be wrong.

They can disagree with me sure and have a different opinion.

Huh? Babies have been born breech for years. . I've never heard of a decapitated one. And midwives should still keep the skills up. Or are you forcing invasive surgery on women again?

Well she hardly had much choice in the matter did she with babies falling out in her front garden lol. My brother was a 9lb 9 oz breech baby. They didn't know until bum appeared first. 2 .5 hour labour Fortunately midwives were more used to breech births then..

All births are full of risks if you look at it

In my case I called the hospital whilst at work because I felt a little unwell, 28 weeks into what had been up till then a straightforward pregnancy with no complications and no underlying health issues.

Luckily I was urged to get to the hospital asap. It was surreal....after rushing around town from work, changing buses etc I arrived. As soon as they checked my blood pressure that was it.....by the end of that day I was recovering from an emergency CS & my DS was in an incubator. The first time my body had failed to do what it was tasked to do; it was a shock to me.

Although I had PTSD & my DS has lifelong disabilities, I count it overall a success - because we both survived. If I had gone the 'free birth' route we would be dead. I do feel for others who were traumatised by the birth as I was, unfortunately it is common. But it is still better to be alive.

Those who are pushing this 'free birth' cult have blood on their hands imo. Still as long as they are coining it through exploiting women's vulnerabilities and fears, that's the main thing eh?

For heavens sake, a quick online search gives estimates (before modern medicine) of a risk of around 1% of maternal death per birth and potentially up to 5% for women who have had several children. Whilst this obviously wouldn't lead to human extinction it would certainly mean a very unhappy start to life for many children without mothers. It isn't just the last baby who loses their mother but the previous children in the family too. And it probably leads to a reduced population as fewer mothers survive to have their "replacement level fertility" of 2.1 children - some suggest this figure should be nearer 2.7 to allow for issues such as families not having children.
There's a world of difference between home birthing and so-called "free birthing". I had two of my four children at home, but decided against it the last time because I knew that she was going to be very large and I had a bit of a struggle with my third. Free birthing is downright dangerous, home birthing (when the mother has been thoroughly assessed) is a choice and not normally dangerous.

She delivered a foot-first baby because she was told how - had she been 'free birthing' the outcome might not have been so successful (and from descriptions in the US article, were not). And of course some women will deliver a breech baby easily. But it can't be relied on and to suggest it can is unhelpful to say the least.

Thanks for signposting the article. It was distressing read but I’m glad I read it

I hadn't noticed I had latched on to you. Sorry. I do not think home births should be banned but I do think 'free birthing' is dangerous and especially so in a society such as pertains in parts of the US where the expense of a midwife is perhaps impossible to cover. I don't think free birthing should be banned I think the ignorance that makes women think its a good idea should be dispelled.

You know how babies have pointy shaped heads when newborn? That's because the plates move as they pass through the pelvic outlet and birth canal. The pressure isn't in the same places when the baby's body passes first and it can result in the head trapped inside with the uterus contracting strongly, often with the cord prolapsing at the same time.

Add into that that the reason for a breech presentation can include placenta praevia, the cervix may not fully dilate due to the lack of normal pressure (meaning greater constriction/obstructed labour) and the risks are significantly higher than the Sheila Kitzinger fangirls would ever want to admit.

Of course, you could ask my ex, whose answer to my suggesting that I deprived him of his birth experience by, you know, not wanting to die, was to seriously suggest we went off to the nearest forest at the end of November and I gave birth in a fucking snowstorm to a baby with her head tipped back and her cord wrapped around and between her legs. And he never, ever forgave me not going along with it. I'm sure he'd agree with you.

Banned?
I suppose you also don't know that babies and women die in hospitals? At a higher rate than at home or free births.
My own niece nearly died at hospital because she was released home and she had some of the placenta still stuck inside her, she bled out so much at home and when we got her to hospital, they tried to send her home saying we can't see anything wrong, and bleeding seems to have stopped, then we insisted on an ultrasound, where they saw the piece of placenta that had an active blood source.
Next baby she wants a home birth!

And my neighbour died 15 years ago, she had twins, she kept complaining of an headache, doctors just said it was normal, they didn't even bother to check her blood pressure, she had eclampsia and died!
Another lady i know, her baby died, my friends daughter, her son has disabilities due to a birth injury.
These are all hospital births.
Some of these tragedies or all could've been prevented had these babies been born at home.
How is that you don't know about the terrible hospital stats?
It usually starts with intervention, induction, c section and negative outcomes.
Do your research before your self righteous outrage 🙄

I'm quite aware thanks My aunt has been a midwife for over 40 years

It doesn't take away from the fact that you might've been ok with being sliced open, not everyone is. People have personal choice ( strangely you haven't mentioned babies that are just breech without POp or other issues

Your ex sounds insane btw

I wasn't keen on it, I found it immensely traumatic (probably due to the vast amount of 'they'll SLICE YOU OPEN' and 'African women don't have rich doctors cutting them up, they get on with it and carrying on working in the fields, you know' (and other such lovely little scraps of racism) meaning I was absolutely fucking terrified, but it was certainly the lesser of all evils.

You don't know that actually.
It's possible that being in hospital caused everything to begin and hey, they also saved you
Amazing.
Usually things starts with unnecessary intervention.
Like in my case, they said I needed an induction due to post dates, they insisted at 41 weeks that I needed my baby out.
I had a violent reaction to the pessary, I went from not at all ready to give birth, to fully dilated in just an hour,
Baby got stuck, shoulder dystocia.
Now imagine, they simply waited until 42 weeks?
Or even 43 (in France thats acceptable)
Perhaps that would never have happened? Perhaps I would've started labour naturally.
You see what I mean?
Let's no jump to thinking that medical intervention was at all neccassary.
Same goes for bleeding out,having an induction makes that more likely, simply being in hospital makes negative outcomes more likely.
Even ur story doesn't sound like an amazing outcome, an amazing outcome would've been a normal labour and delivery.

How would you ban it? Force medical interventions on women?

Completely disagree. I believe the baby should have just as many rights as the mother at this point, most importantly the right to enter the world with the best chance of being healthy.