Free-Birthing...insanity?

[PregnantGrrrl]

I saw a discussion on 'free-birthing' yesterday, which i had never heard of before.
It was bonkers (IMO) it involves no scans, no tests, no drugs, no doctors / midwives.

I'm all for doctor free, drug free, home births but going without even a scan or a single blood test seems madness (and so potentially dangerous) to me.

The woman who heads the movement has has 5 kids this way, and says we don't need medical intervention of any kind.

What do you think? Have you / would you?

Hi Lulamama, whats BBA?

with my third baby, now 16 weeks, had no scans, no blood tests and would have prob been happy without a m/w but booked wth an IM for a home water VBAC. I was fully aware of the minimal (IMO) risk I was taking and felt I would have a better outcome this way.

I am Rhesus negative (as is 1/6 of the population) and this couldn't be guessed by anyone w/o testing.

I also have gestational diabetes - to ignore it would be very stupid indeed.

Birth Before Arrival..... ie of the Midwife..so you have contacted the MW , but baby arrives too quickly!

good luck with your home VBAC snugglebum !

BBA made me laugh when they put it on my notes, as if it was the arrival of the mw which was important!
As I said I didn't plan an unassisted hb, and if I had another I would phone the mw as soon as my waters went (instead of 10 mins later when I had the first contraction), still wouldn't have made a difference in this case though, as she didn't turn up until an hour after the birth.
I know you are making a distinction here, and I compeletly agree with it. I didn't have a choice in my unassisted birth, and as I said below luckily everything was ok. Freebirthers DO have a choice, and they are chosing to do without that, potentially lifesaving, support.
I think people forget how dangerous childbirth used to be, not so very long ago, and the mother and child mortality rates.

I've had it lulumama, sorry my posting was not clear, nearly a BBA but my m/w arrived 30 mins before DS2 , mind you placenta took ages after that, so there would still have been something for her to catch

Totally agree lulumama - is selfish.

Agree with MMJ too, am also quite a hippy but I think it is naive to glibly forget that childbirth is still dangerous for mothers and babies, even in the overly medicalised western world.

well, belated congrats then ! LOL !!

You'd have to be bonkers to do this. Women used to do it this way all the time and look how many of them died doing it

I don't even think that women did do this in the past.

Traditionally women have always used some form of birth attendant. My mother was born at home. Her mother was too poor to have a doctor to help, or even a trained nurse, but even she had the very experienved woman from next door but one.....sort of unofficial dould I suppose, who would have sent for the doctor if Gran had got into serious problems.

Doula! sorry!

no, they didn;t do this in the past

either an experienced elder of the community would deliver, or your mum or some sort of female support would be with you..midwives go back to biblical times i think...

Message withdrawn

I know that what I meant was not having any blood tests or scans

According to Michel Odent (I'm currently reading The farmer and the obstetrician which is very relevant to this thread for anyone interested) although midwifery is very very old, before this women would have delivered on their own and in some pre-agricultural tribes in Africa this is still what happened until recently. Midwifery may have arisen from women calling out for help at the last minute.

Pre agricultural would mean thousands of years ago. How does Odent know this is what they did? Are there Freebirth drawings on cave walls?

Sounds like a load of cobblers to me.

not read that one daisy, am wondering if he is pro freebirth.....he is also anti men in the delivery room, IIRC...

Why would someone be anti-men in the delivery room?

IIRC , it disturbs a woman's birthing energy...but i am no expert on Odent..Ina May is more my thing

but i am going to get this book out of the library

odent feels that is can be negative for the woman. I also seem to remember that he feels that only women who have had a normal vaginal delivery should be there.

He also feels that the rate of violent crime in Brazil is caused by the rate of C sections, so I feel that he sometimes gets carried away with his particular 'axe' and isn't that 'sound' a scientist.

he sounds odd

not all bad, he invented the concept of water birth and he has some sound notions about birth

I think that initailly he has some sound ideas and was one of the first people to really promote low intevention delivery/water births.

Now he seems to want to link together lots of things that fit his general 'view'. So, he fails to take into account the vast socioeconomic factors that separate Brazil from the scandinavian countries he was comparing them with. For him it was a simple case of high rate of section =violent country which is, to be charitable, sloppy science.

Ditto this idea that in our distant prehistory women delivered alone. What possible evidence does he have for this? All the evidence that we have points to your distant ancestors living communal lives, why would childbirth be done alone? Hunting and gathering were communal events.