Anyone watching CH4 tonight, about freebirthing?

[flubdub]

Its on at nine.
Its about women that give birth at home, alone with no midwife, and no medical interventio.

look a few posts back, I put a link to the channel 5 on demand service online.

By BabiesEverywhere on Thu 10-Jul-08 07:10:50

"As I'm a 36 1/2 week low risk pregnant woman who still has no midwife care assigned to our planned home birth, it worries me that I may be forced into hospital or freebirthing, neither of which I want to do."

BabiesEverywhere have you contacted your Head of Midwifery? It is unacceptable that you don't have a rota of on-call mw assigned..... Call HoM, state that you need your rota now so that you can meet the mw and if they can't provide enough mw they'd better start calling some IM, NOW!!

any idea when this will be repeated? (our sky had broken and couldnt get normal tv either!)

I have been thinking about this today and the more I think about it the more cross I get. There are millions of women who die in childbirth every year because they don't have access to the support they need to do it safely. Childbirth is still the biggest killer of women up to the age of 19 in the world. And women who have access to great care choose to eschew it. And what happens if there is a complication? They will be taking away paramedics from people who really need them. And/or their babies will die.

It just seems to me to be willfully disregarding the best interests of the baby to freebirth. And how can that be right?

Ta.

I do think that a traumatised mother is bad for the baby but the solution must be to improve funding and the system rather than rejecting it...surely the safest option for everyone?

i am so cheesed off I missed this. anyone got a copy they can send me?

Annoyed I missed this. Will seek it out on the website

sidetracking a little - itv news today were talking about a report that is out on midwifery services in the UK letting women down - see here - it is just interesting juxtapositioning of the free-birth programme and this report saying that there aren't enough MWs or delivery beds or post-natal beds in the UK currently.

Outlaw Births here

sophiebbb - glad you had a positive birth experience at the midwife-led centre at St George's - just to let you know it is being very well used now - it had literally only just opened when you had your baby there - and all the women I talk to who've experienced the care there have raved about it - however you can't choose to go there in advance - it's offered to all women who fit the criteria when they go into hospital in labour whether or not they've expressed an interest - it means that it hasn't become a middle-class ghetto and a really diverse range of women are using the centre

btw Clair is bonkers (I know her in RL) ...

Grr I couldn't the Demand Five thing to work

I can't get the channel 5 thing to work either, old PC can't cope with it!

Sounds like an interesting programme although perhaps a bit sensationalistic but that's probably the point of these programmes isn't it, to be a bit controversial?

I gave birth at home without a midwife present - it was not in this country, and having a midwife was not an option. I chose this option after much care and thought and had contingency plans for most of the major things that could go wrong. I was under the care of an OB who was aware of my plans and who provided a birth kit (which I paid for, not on the NHS!). He was in theory on call to attend but we all knew it was unlikely he would make it to the actual birth and indeed he did not. He arrived after we had cut the cord and DD2 was happily breastfeeding. It was a gorgeous birth, wonderful. If I was to have another baby in this country I would probably opt for a private midwife just because the system is a bit different here but would ask her to stay downstairs unless I needed her.

I have to say that in my experience, women who choose to birth "outside" of the norm wether that be homebirth or freebirth or whatever put an immense amount of time and effort into planning their births, in fact they are usually much better informed and prepared than a lot of women plannning hospitals births. They are not disregarding the safety of their babies at all but genuinely choose this as the best and safest option for them personally.

Doesn't mean it's for everybody, but neither is a hospital birth the best or safest choice for everybody. Each to their own.