Does Anyone know what a birthing person is ?

[Teacupover5]

Listening to Nicky Campbell on 5 live this morning 9-10 minutes in if anyone wants to listen again .Guest is discussing investigation into declining standards in maternity services .
Refers to women and birthing people being let down .
AIBU to not understand what a birthing person is ,and to wonder if this focus on inclusivity has had an impact on declining care for women ?

I’m sure it was probably clear but birthing person always makes me think of a doula / someone that helps at the birth.

I suspect lots of money gets pissed away on training and vanity stuff like this. I think it’s far easier to achieve token inclusivity on a stonewall style merit system than it is to actually improve care. It’s well known that black women and other ethnic minorities receive poorer maternity care and have worse outcomes. That’s probably a bit tough to fix but look over here we have rainbows and gender neutral language, didn’t we do well.

And the hospital staff told the police that there was no man on the ward because that man was trans

ie women. Only women can give birth.
So called trans”men” are still and will always be women.
The phrase “women and birthing people” is nonsensical.

I don't disagree with you around the difficulties with this and the need to protect women at all.

@lifeturnsonadime "It's absolutely absurd (and transphobic) to suggest that a trans identifying female doesn't understand their sex and that there are health risk associated with their sex." Yes doing so would be absolutely transphobic. Could you quote where I've said I think this is the case as I've very explicitly stated that this is not what i think if your post is aimed at responding to mine.

But the NHS in the case of the transwomen rapist were "trained" to say that he was a woman because of #bekind. The point is that using the language of gender ideology causes real harm. I will not lie about someone's sex and I should not be forced to. Neither should NHS be "trained" to or NHS documents use ideological language.

Do the goaded recognise they’ve been poked? It seems not.

I fully agree that there are other groups who need better access and better provision to create better outcomes for them absolutely and I'll lobby for that all day long. But I don't think that pitting the needs of groups of vulnerable women whatever their demographic is against each other is the best approach. Surely that is just going to create a race to the bottom and we just need to be advocating for accessible and high quality healthcare for all women that's as adaptive as it (safely) can be to the needs of those demographics? There are huge amounts of inefficiency within the healthcare service in general that could be tightened up on to save money, never mind the intentional and consistent under funding by governments over the years that should be held more to account for that. To me, that's where we should be channelling energy and calling for overhaul of services as opposed to picking a group and sticking with a shit budget and screw the rest.

So why do you think that it is a good use of NHS resources to infantilise trans identifying females? Surely it’s better to use limited resources on actual healthcare for female people?

if trans identifying females know that they have female bodies and that they need female healthcare this is a waste of limited funds, so it absolutely does harm women as it could be better spent on treating conditions which affect women.

I’m confident that all those of us who know what a woman is and what a man is (which is a growing number of women and men) will continue being tiresome about this until the nonsense and abuse stops.

If they’re experiencing dysphoria why the hell are they doing the most female thing they could ever possibly do - give birth? Does it not occur to you that if using the wrong bloody pronoun brings on dysphoria then growing another human in your uterus and pushing it down your birth canal and out of your vagina would send them into a headspin?

Use your brain!

It's also contributing to the enforcement of an ideology that causes particular harm to women and children. The NHS of all places should not be supporting an ideology that causes both mental and physical harm.

Ok this I do understand, and I also think there should be appropriate mechanisms in place to prevent these things happening again. I do think your biological sex should be on your medical records but also noted that you have a language preference. So that would essentially protect women only spaces, but mean that in conversation directly to the patient you can use neutral language to refer to them. On official documentation that should then flag for statutory reporting or bed allocation etc.

I'm interested in what you mean by neutral language. Do you mean that you wouldn't refer to a transwoman as "she" but something like "they" or "the patient"? You do know that they won't be satisfied with that don't you? You have to totally capitulate to their language demands otherwise you are transphobic.

There are women out there every day who carry pregnancies they didn't want or ask for, or that are making them very unwell to term. It's unreasonable to suggest that those same complexities or vulnerabilities don't apply to someone who doesn't identify as female and this should therefore never happen? I would imagine numbers are small and we're definitely talking about minority complex cases in that type of scenario but then is that not more reason to try and be supportive because it's even more crucial they are engaging with services?

This is a real generalisation though. Due to the nature of the work I do I've worked with a lot of trans and non binary people over the years and I have honestly never had anyone have an issue with me using neutral language or even the odd slip and using the 'wrong' language or name because for the vast majority intention is what matters. They would however have an issue if I intentionally and consistently used a 'dead' name or their biological sex but I'd feel pretty disrespectful doing that if it made them uncomfortable- particularly if i was in a position of trust and power. I do think it's really unfair to spread the idea that trans or non binary people are always demanding or unreasonable etc because a few who are shout the loudest when many just want to get on with things as long as people are operating in good faith around them as do we all.

To me, operating in good faith means not lying or affirming a harmful delusion.

I have every sympathy for people who are unhappy about their sex but the answer does not lie in cutting off body parts and lying that they have magically turned into the opposite sex. They need help to reconcile themselves with their bodies - they can be as gender non-conformig as they want - but they don't get to make everyone else lie to shore up a harmful delusion.

Based on just your title I thought you are talking about people who support women through delivery. I thought this thread might be about that horrible woman who advocates for a completely natural birth irrespective of the risks to the woman or baby (no scans, no clinical settings and no medical interventions whatsoever no matter what complications arise during pregnancy or delivery. Apparently some babies were not meant to be born). She has a podcast, which i can't believe hasn't been banned. I listened to one of the podcast episodes where her guest spoke about how she dealt with excessive bleeding by her husband holding her tummy or some shit like that rather than getting medical help. And they were so pleased with themselves. Seriously that woman has got blood on her hands.

Sorry for the rant and the tangent. Well the only thing that is relevant i guess is that compared to the nonsense this person is putting out into the world, which is tangible hurting women and their babies using the term birthing person seems relatively harmless.

I'd forgotten her name. It's Emilie saldaya and her cult is called the free birth society.

www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/nov/22/free-birth-society-linked-to-babies-deaths-investigation

Really? When I read the title I thought it was likely referring to a doula who assists a woman giving birth.

Does anyone know how many 'birthing people' (as the term was intended on the referenced radio prog in the OP) there are per year in the UK?
It would be interesting to know how many people the suggested language change caters for.

So when they have given birth they will no longer be a birthing person - or does birthing person refer to anyone who is of an age and appropriate anatomy to be potentially able to give birth? If birthing person is more specific to pregnancy and giving birth what should they be called after they have given birth when they need a cervical smear or gynaecological treatment or a mammogram?

This is another example of the consequences how pandering to this sort of trans activism undermines safeguarding.

I am not a woman and I certainly can give birth.

Because I’d quite like a family and my husband doesn’t appear to have the parts needed to carry a foetus. So it will be down to me.

I dread to think how this will change my body shape to make it even more distressing than it is now, but that is the choice I will have to make.

I think this woman was from NCT. They are anti intervention. Many of the parents talking needed intervention and yet they gave the nct a huge platform. They are very pro breast feeding and anti epidural and CS. I joined before first baby and I was more or less told I was a “heretic”. Of course women want a “natural birth”! Telling women what they want is a national disease. Pretending women are birthing people is just ludicrous but the NCT isn’t for all women. It’s for people who believe in their mantra and follow what they say whether it’s sensible or not. Unfortunately some midwives are of a similar view and ditch their training principles. It’s not acceptable.

An adult human female who is so sure they aren't really female that they have decided to get pregnant and give birth

I can sort of understand people having a gender identity and sort of understand them wanting to pretend their gender identity overrides their sex, but someone who gets pregnant and has a baby and also insists they they aren't a woman at all, I don't have much understanding of