To cringe at this article (free natural birth)

[boogiewoogie]

I couldn't help but feel but also sad when I read this article.

For a start, whilst sexual intercourse is often a necessary prerequisite although not always for birth to take place, giving birth itself is not a sexual experience!

She also says that a free birth is an open celebration of love and understanding but surely there are other ways and isn't having a child that has been conceived through love a celebration itself?

At the end she says that she has a fantastic relationship with this child and that it is different from her first therefor implying that her relationship with the first is inferior.

Am I also being naive in thinking that birth plans do not always go as planned? Okay, perhaps some of this is probably sour grapes but I am happy with the natural births that I had as they required little assistance.

The birth of course should be a pleasant experience and whilst it is nice to hear that she has had an amazing experience given her first birth, I just feel that a lot of women already feel stigmatised for having C sections and that articles such as this puts a lot of pressure on mothers to have a certain type of birth amongst other things to be a "model parent" whatever that may be.

I'm sure there would have been some editing, but quite frankly, if you put yourself in that position, have your photo taken and names used, and talk to a journalist about your relationship with one child being 'fantastic' and the other being 'very different' then I think you have to bear responsibility.

the independent is actually more up its own arse than the guardian. i had forgotten that.

i have to admitt that article made me snigger. but glad she had such a great time.

This type of article makes me so sad. I feel sorry that this lady had a bad experience during her first pregnancy, but the practice of freebirthing can be so very dangerous. I find it difficult to understand why someone would put their precious child at risk just for the sake of the experience of having a freebirth. Things could have gone terribly wrong and she would have had the rest of her life to regret her decision. A great many women in the developing world do not choose to freebirth but it is imposed upon them due to poverty. You just need to look at the maternal and infant mortality statistics related to childbirth to see the dangers. However, ultimatley it is her baby and her choice...whatever the outcome.

Hmmm - am very wary of things like this - I had a fantastic easy natural birth with both of my children BUT ds2 had the cord 3 times tight round his neck and was born blue and barely breathing - without very quick paediatric intervention I am certain he wouldn't have survivived. This was something that could not have been predicted - I ahd a very healthy pregnancy and a straightforward easy labour - I can;t imagine if the worst happened it being in a free birth situation where you had had a hand in there being NO medical assistance available.

The really worrying bit is right at the end;

'This time I am enjoying a completely unassisted pregnancy'

which I interpret to mean no checkups and no scans. So if she has placenta previa or pre-eclampsia or a transverse baby at delivery, she's planning to cope with that at home too? How exactly is that going to work?

Ophelia and Aurora.

Poor kids.

i did have a guilty snort at the names

Whilst freebirthing isn't something I would choose, I understand why people do.

I would also say that whilst the woman also mainly have unassisted pregnancy's, they make certain checks themselves eg check the heartbeat, fundal height, the baby's position etc. They also often learn resuc. techniques. It is not something that is undertaken lightly and in ignorance.

One of the things bothering her about her first birth is that the midwife turned on the light, rather than work by candlelight.

This woman is a stupid, narcissistic cow.

YANBU

I think the understanding she displays of what happened in her previous birth is worryingly limited: the midwife turned the lights on etc because she needed to assess the baby's progress not because she wasn't 'respecting' their environment. She didn't transfer them to hospital because she wanted to finish her shift but rather because the woman had been in labour for 48 hours and the midwife obvously had concerns for the well being of the child and mother.

The author is fortunate to have achieved a straightforward birth but it seems reckless in the extreme to proceed in this way through choice. Long before the medical profession evolved an interest in birth, it was usual for the labouring mother to be assisted by other women who understood the process - not a husband - however excellent at vowel sounds he might be! I understand and approve of the desire to have as undirected a birth as possible, to follow your body's lead and not be hurried into unnecessary intervention BUT I've also had a baby with the cord round the neck and a pph and a post childbirth infection. I know one woman whose life and that of her child was saved by a crash c-section and one woman whose child was critically brain damaged through birth, There is too much that can go wrong to leave this up to chance. In ignoring the skills that are available to you and free birthing I think you are risking everything on a false premise.

"they make certain checks themselves eg check the heartbeat, fundal height, the baby's position etc. They also often learn resuc. techniques"

FOUR midwives checked my baby position, one 2 minutes before she did an internal examination during my labour. All of them pronounced DS was head down. He was in fact a footling breech which greatly increases the possibility of cord prolapse. The woman is a complete idiot.

Exactly Libra - finding which way up the baby is isn't always easy, neither is finding a heartbeat and locating the position of the placenta without a scan is as far as I'm aware impossible. And what about blood tests - goodness knows I'm no fan of the Glocose tolerance testing that seems to be rammed down everybodys throats these days but even I think basic bloods to identify any major abnormalities or severe anaemia are a good idea.

Is anyone aware that this was a Lotus birth, not just a freebirth - the main difference being that the cord is not cut, so the placenta remains attached until the cord naturally withers and comes away?
The mother wraps the placenta in muslins and carries it around with the baby. I kid you not.

I think I've seen this couple in our local paper (or it may have been another couple of a similar ilk), and they were planning to set up a commune of other Lotus birthing fans.

I agree that she's entitled to tell us about her birth experience if she so wishes, but the crack about her older daughter was unnecessary and showed her up as self-centred and unhinged.

To be fair to her she wasn't critical of other women's decisions to have medicalised labours, she was just talking about what worked for her. I feel a bit sorry for her really that she feels so threatened by even the slightest bit of medical intervention she obviously needs the candles etc to help her focus and channel her energy.

I had a hypnotherapy session before my first labour which was in hospital and although I was induced and there was a big panic at the end as my ds's heart rate dropped suddenly with the cord around his neck, I felt pretty relaxed and confident, because of my thoughts, not all the trappings of the environment.
Same with my second, again in hospital, but more straightforward.

Sometimes wanting the 'perfect' birth and an abject horror of hospital can set you up for stress or even a disappointment when things don't go the way you 'planned'.
I just wanted my babies I wasn't really that bothered how they got here!

pmsl @ 'however excellent at vowel sounds he might be'

Oh, this is self-indulgent twattery. Unassisted childbirth without medical intervention works OK a lot of the time, but the risks of something going badly wrong ie badly enough to kill mother, baby or both are about 1 in 3. Yes women used to give birth in the bushes, or attended only by the village midwife armed with maternity songs, a herb or two and a pair of rusty scissors but about 30% of them died, or their babies did.
OK if you are in good health and there is nothing wrong with your foetus, you might well be OK to freebirth, but a lot of these hippy twats refuse all medical care which means that they don't acutally know if the foetus is breech, or hydrocephalic, or the cord is twisted... I just despise this moron-mindset of 'wahh, science is all bad and male and we were happier wallowing in the dirt and believing in pixies'.

Lol @ SGB. My thoughts exactly.

Mind you, has anyone else seen this?
Don't you want to kick him in the cock?

I do not understand the need to be quite so extreme either. I had a hb with DS3. I had developed a real fear (not quite phobic) of hospitals and just about anything medical. This was due to spending many many months with DD in hospital. Anything medical (smells, noises etc) triggered awful memories and sometimes flashbacks.

Anyhoooo - I had a nice hb and the midwives pretty much sat in the hallway till I needed them. I was in labour for bloody ages (yes your body does flipping forget) but the mws were only involved for an hour or so.

Why cut all medical help out of the birthing process when you can compromise?

I have always thought the 'well women used to go and squat behind a bush to give birth' comment bloody stupid too. Yeah they did and they used to die horribly along with their babies. (As SGB has already mentioned).

Freebirthing? When my stupid bint of a SIL didnt bother to go to antenatal checks throughout her pregnancy and her baby was born looking like a barrage ballon it was called neglect.

Infact I know quite a few women who shun all antenatal care. Its usually due to wanting to keep off social service's radar rather than wanting an orgasmic freebirth.

Of course women should have choice and birth should not be invasive and medicalised with no good reason.

I do find these type of articles smug but she has a right to talk about her experiences.

It is worth looking at the Wikipedia page on unassisted childbirth. Several of its most vocal proponents have, unfortunately, had serious problems at birth and some babies have died. It is clear that even in a Western country in 2009, giving birth is a hazardous business.

Whether the babies could have been saved or not by proper intervention is unclear, partly because the women did not have any sort of antenatal checks or scans.

Of course women should have a choice, but doesn't an ethical issue arise because the baby, of course, has no choice at all?

i couldn't read past the first few paragraphs as i was shouting at the pc screen about her use of 'we'

'we gave birth', 'we laboured', etc..... pet hate of mine is the whole 'we're pregnant' brigade and that article brought it to new and frightening levals.

unless her dh is a miracle of nature then 'they' did not effing give birth, she did and he supported her.

silly woman!

free birthing and lotus birth etc i actually like reading about generally... didn't have the guts to free birth myself (and ds2 ended up in scbu de to inhaling my blood during an otherwise perfect birth so just as well i chickened out) but i do completely understand the reasonaing behind it.

YABU re the article she can tell who she likes really and its her experience however i think she is a loon. I worked on in a hospital in outback Australia where women would turn up in labour having recieved no ante natal care whatsoever and i saw some terrible things

Wouldn't it be far more sensible to employ an independent MW who you had found and loved and instructed her fully in what you would like, even if that meant all she had to do was be in the house for emergencies.

I'm always a bit when people put there own experience of birth over there babies safety. Like somebody said infant mortality rates are better in this country for a reason.

"but the risks of something going badly wrong ie badly enough to kill mother, baby or both are about 1 in 3".

Actually this isn't true.

When a mother is in good health, has had proper antenatal care and is giving birth to a full-term baby her chances of both of them coming through birth in good health are actually extremely high. Actually the research suggests that women who have BBA's ('Born before arrival', ie, their baby is born at home - unplanned - or on route to hospital)may even end up with fewer birth injuries and subsequent problems than women giving birth in hospital.

There's some research on this in a recent copy of MIDIRS (a research journal for midwives). This one study of 44 women looked at all the babies born in this way in one area over the course of a year in one borough. Of that group 32% were considered 'low risk', and the rest had a variety of risk factors, including obesity, diabetes, and previous small baby. Four of the babies were under 2.5kg at term. The study concluded that "It appears there were no serious adverse outcokmes as a result of a BBA". Actually most of the babies who needed admitting to special care were discharged quite quickly, and most of them had needed to go in the first place because of hypothermia - they'd just got chilled!

Not encouraging or justifying freebirthing by the way - just trying to put the risks in perspective!

YANBU - I find the whole article stomach churning, especially when she basically admits that she isnt as close to her older daughter than her younger one.

Sabire: but a lot of these hippy twats have no antenatal care (and quite possible don't eat properly either) so the risks increase.