Homebirths forced to go underground

If an Australian woman wanting give birth at home is Little Red Riding Hood, then the Rudd government is the Big Bad Wolf.

Under the draft Health Practitioner Regulation Law released last week, homebirths will effectively become illegal.

How does it work?

According to the new law, all health practitioners (such as midwives) must hold indemnity insurance in order to legally practise. Considering the government and insurance companies have thus far been unwilling to include homebirth in the indemnity scheme, therefore, any midwife that attends a homebirth (even if qualified) will be subject to a fine of AU$30,000.

Homebirths will now be forced to go underground as Australian women are being stripped of their choices in childbirth. Now, it seems that a hospital is the only sanctioned venue for birth to occur.

Australian College of Midwives executive officer Dr Barbara Vernon said the Government's intentions were obvious.

"Even though only less than half a per cent of women have home births, they should have the same rights as a woman who chooses to have a caesarean," she said. "Home births won't stop."

Vernon touches on an important contradiction. Why is that women can still elect to have caesarean births which arguably carries much risk and the small proportion of women (about 2%) who want to give birth at home cannot do so even if the birth is attended by a qualified health professional?

I think unfortunately, the tragic death of Joyous Birth founder, Janet Fraser's baby in April during a homebirth has unfairly placed the blame on the venue of birth rather than any other medical factors that could have been integral to her baby's death. It is not clear how Janet's baby died other than it suffered from cardiac arrest and could not be revived.

The small proportion of instances where homebirth goes horribly wrong pale in comparison to the staggering complication and caesarean rates that women in the developed world are continually subject to as a result of needless intervention in hospital.

Seriously, K. Rudd. Leave the business of birth to women.

On that note check this uplifting tale of homebirth...

Homebirth and freebirth are not the same

For those of you that read this blog, you will know that homebirth in Australia is now a topic of heated discussion. With state maternity systems on the brink of collapse, overwhelmed by birthing mothers, unstaffed and underfunded, having a baby is now a political issue. Most recently, midwives have been lobbying to have a more broadly defined role (such as writing prescriptions) in order to alleviate the pressure on the country's OBs. Nevertheless, homebirth is back in the news again today particularly due to uninformed media releases announcing the women are so 'desperate' that they are having dangerous homebirths because women aren't getting treated in hospital. According to the stats cited in one Daily Telegraph report, 4 babies have died in the last 9 months because their irresponsible mothers decided to give birth at home. This statistic is intended to show that women are now using homebirth as a last resort and not as a legitimate and largely safe choice.

One of these deaths, however, was a result of a freebirth and quite sadly was the baby of Janet Fraser, founder of Joyous Birth, an online forum that initially began as a place for women to talk about traumatic experiences of birth. Over the years, the site has become increasingly 'radical' and is now known to be one of the more popular freebirthing sites. Fraser claims that the site is really just about women being in control of their births, however, if I can be honest, one of the reasons why I initially distanced myself from writing for the site was because I felt that there was an overwhelming assumption that all hospital birth is bad and that women are inevitably the victims of evil doctors. It has been reported that Fraser was giving birth at home with her partner unassisted. In fact, I recently came across an interview with Fraser from The Age which begins with her in labour with the child that did not survive.

The media has failed to differentiate between freebirth or unassisted birth (no midwife or doctor) and homebirth (a birth at home, usually with a midwife or homebirth doctor). For the most part, for low-risk births that are attended properly, homebirth has been proven to be a safe alternative to hospital birth. Freebirthing is significantly more risky (sorry, I'm a supporter but also a realist). It is essential to make this differentiation. Now that homebirth is on the precipice of being banned given that independent midwives are likely going to be denied indemnity insurance from next year, the suggestion that all women who homebirth are crazy radicals or that homebirth represents the majority of birthing women in Australia (only about 2%) is ridiculous. If anything, midwives and their ability to attend homebirths will be the saving grace of the Australian maternity system. Rather than convincing the small proportion of women who avoid a medicalised birth, why not support these women in their choices by making homebirth safe and easy?

Moral panic Thursday!

I love a good moral panic. As you probably have noticed, I haven't even touched on Sarah Palin and all of this teen pregnancy tomfoolery. Rather, my attention turns to freebirthing. Yet again.

According to the Daily Mail, as a result of a midwife shortage in the UK, women are being 'forced' to have 'dangerous' homebirths. The maternity system in the UK is so overcrowded, understaffed, and apparently un-hygienic, many women have opted to have their babies at home. Dame Karlene Davis, a midwife said:

'Technology and the internet has led to people thinking they can do freebirthing. If a woman has had a positive experience then people think it’s something worth trying."

Damn that technology. Putting ideas in women's heads. Lead them not into temptation! Even though the British government is unwilling to acknowledge the midwife shortage and birth rates continue to rise in the midst of a crumbling system, I highly doubt that the majority of women in the UK are freebirthing or even homebirthing, for that fact. In most of the West, homebirthing is still rare and unfortunately, women are more willing to suffer the ills of public medical systems rather than have babies at home because they are not given the proper information nor the support to make that choice if they so desire. All of this malarky and panic over freebirthing is evidence of a resounding fear that if women give birth on their own or at home with a midwife, obstetric 'expertise' will be undermined. In Australia, the government is considering giving midwives the power to prescribe medications and to deal with Medicare as a way to cope with understaffing. And why not considering births in Oz are at the highest level since 1971? Of course doctors have attacked this proposal with more 'risk' talk saying that more babies will die if midwives have a greater role in hospitals. No wonder women in Australia and beyond are sceptical of homebirth and freebirth: doctors keep telling them they will die or their babies will die. Sure there are always risks but scare tactics will not fix underfunded and understaffed maternity systems.

Sources: http://tinyurl.com/5kf22l
http://www.theage.com.au/national/doctors-attack-midwives-proposal-20080910-4dvi.html

Pregnancy madness

I like to keep abreast of the latest scandal as much as the next gal. Whereas scandals used to involve celebrities, an addiction, an affair, an illegitimate pregnancy or a divorce, this week pregnant women around the world have been making headlines for subverting all kinds of cultural norms:

In the Daily Mail yesterday, a debate about freebirthing as 'madness' or 'ideal'. One woman is profiled for flagrantly bucking the British national health system. Apparently the risks she took 'horrified' doctors.
See: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1039407/Freebirthing-Is-madness-ideal-way-birth.html

Two American women in the US were featured on Good Morning America after admitting to 'cross-feeding', meaning they breastfed each other's babies. This is apparently controversial and has been featured as a topic for discussion on all the American morning shows and this morning on Australia's Today.
Watch the segment here: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/story?id=5459697&page=1

Again, on GMA this morning there is a lengthy feature about women who give birth not knowing they were even pregnant in the first place. This is supposed to be bizarre but actually it happens quite often. The GMA article argues that it is most likely because the women are overweight and do not gain any weight or have physical signs of pregnancy. I tend to disagree. I think that part of the lack of recognition of physical or psychological signs of pregnancy may be attributed to ‘avoidance coping’ mechanisms in which a woman denies the pregnancy if she feels she is not ready to have a baby or has not yet decided whether she will carry the pregnancy to term. For isntance, it's very interesting that the majority of women who have 'surprise pregnancies' (which the show doesn't even mention) are teen mothers.
Check it out: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/story?id=5470808&page=1

Thoughts?

Freebirthing rant

As I was watching the Today show this morning (Australian version), my ears perked up immediately when I heard that they were doing a segment on freebirthing..no doctors, no drugs, is it safe? as if it were a conspiracy and with the requisite mysterious music playing in the background. I have to say there was nothing in this segement that was particularly 'new' or enlightening. However, I was very interested in how they were going to 'do' this segment and I assumed correctly that of course, freebirthing was too dangerous and too risky and women who do it were basically 'too optimistic' when it comes to the horrors of labour.

Of course, they went straight to Laura Shanley who is widely respected as one of the pioneers of the freebirthing movement in the US (in fact, Laura commented on my last post about freebirthing). Her positive experiences were contrasted with an incredibly idiotic doctor who of course had to say that birth was dangerous blah blah blah and women are stupid for choosing to avoid technologised birth. Not only was his argument vague but rather than saying 'interventionist' in reference to medicalised birth kept saying 'interventionalist'. Makes me slightly worried that he was allowed to leave medical school. In the studio, Dr. Rick Gordon, the medical editor for the show, was interviewedand he is not an obstetrician or an 'expert' in pregnancy or birth and he said 'death' so many times in the segment I just started to get even more angry.

You can watch the segment on the Today show link below and read the accompanying article. I think it would be great if women who have had homebirths or freebirths would write in about their positive experiences to the network and overwhelm them with responses because this was a completely one-sided story.
Email: today@nine.com.au

Source: http://today.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=417872

freebirth!

Yesterday, I did a 36 week interview with one of the women in my study who revealed that she is actually going to freebirth her second child after a few weeks of careful contemplation. Up until now, no one in my study has done this (although many have had beautiful home births) so I am very excited and thought I would share. Freebirthing, or unassisted birth, is often referred to as one of the most extreme rejections of the perceived 'overmedicalisation' of childbirth in 'Western' countries. For those that don't know much about this experience, proponents of freebirthing argue that women are the only people suited to deliver children into the world.

The woman I have been interviewing throughout her pregnancy had a fairly negative hospital experience with her first child and decided that her second birth would be positive and totally different. In hospital, she felt out of control, uneducated and at the mercy of doctors and midwives who were telling her what to do. In this second pregnancy, she hired a homebirth doctor to look after her and then a midwife to assist with the actual birth. However, after a few hypnobirthing classes which she and her partner found to be really empowering, they decided that they would birth the baby completely on their own at home in a pool. She said that the only reason she initially thought she should have someone there with her was because of the fear that something would go wrong with the birth; that she didnt trust herself even then though they just wanted the doctor and the midwife to stay in the shadows unless they were needed. However, she didn't feel comfortable holding on to the fear of what could happen considering she already made the leap to having the baby at home without any pain relief or intervention. Freebirthing has been a way for her to shake those last vestiges of anxiety. I have to say I really respect her courage in stepping so far outside of the square and making a decision that I think alot of women would love to do but are definitely too afraid to actually carry out.

Also, her 2yr old daughter is going to be present at the birth (or for as long as she can) and they are definitely going to proceed with a lotus birth (maintaining the connection between the placenta and the baby until the umbilical cord falls off on its own). She also mentioned that part of her plan is to eat some of the placenta to maintain and reinforce her connection to the new baby, freeze the rest of it and perhaps give some to the baby at a later date. I've heard of mothers eating the placenta before but on some level it also means that the body of the mother and baby are not so abruptly separated as soon as the baby is born. By keeping the placenta attached to the baby and then later actually ingesting a piece of the placenta, it's as if mother and child remain connected as one body (like in pregnancy) and later on with breastfeeding.

Laura Shanley has developed a really useful site about unassisted birth with lots of amazing photos, videos and birth stories. This is a must-see for anyone considering freebirthing!

This is a link to a great article about catching your own baby:
http://unassistedchildbirth.com/uc/catch.html