Agreed, I'm not a friend of Janet's and won't be visiting her forum again, but I wish people would stop attaching neonate mortality with her name. It must be distressing for those who DO know her (and there are members on BB who do) to see this done. She's a real person, someone who has birthed, like you and me and I wouldn't want to be the flagbearer for an outcome that actually happens FAR more frequently in hospital settings because of the lack of continuity of care and the lack of awareness of complication indicators that experienced midwives know about and pick up on early because they see women labouring. IM's don't tend to tell women they'll be there and interested when they are nearly fully dilated. Hospital staff in maternity wards aren't that well-versed with normal birth as it occurs from beginning to end - they catch the end bit, that's why I ONLY wanted to present to our local FBC once I had laboured entirely at home, because hospy and FBC policy is determined by what THEY think is enough labouring time before intervention cuts in
Sorry, that is a bit long-winded, and the crux of it is that undisturbed birth has, by far, much better outcomes, even where there are complications (Marjorie Tew's book has great examples of this occurring in the UK over the last century and a bit, esp rural areas where GP's used to do these deliveries without specialist intervention...they were afforded the experience adn actually LISTENED to birthing women. They had to, they paid their wages, not hospital management teams!).
You see, birth is very political in our society. Birth is not birth is not birth. Peel away at the layers and you find a history of misogyny, privilege and subjugation of women with careers and experience with childbirth.
A read of this book can give you confidence in birthing outside of hospital settings
I think we have to distinguish between an unintentional home birth and a planned freebirth. They are 2 different things and one can happen to anybody if we labour faster or differently then we think we will. i was led to believe that a true freebirth had no medical care whatsoever, including antenatal care, and the woman and her partner take absolute responsibility for the preganacy and birth. But that is just recall from conversations and not any major research done on my part.
I have worked in a major maternity hospital for the past 9 years and can recall very few instances where a term birth has gone so catastrophically wrong where the baby has died or suffered major disability because of lack of care during labour. Most problems I have seen occur due to complications or emergencies occuring during delivery. I have also seen the outcomes of homebirths with complications as well. In fact about the same number. Unfortunately hospitals HAVE to have these pathways and timelines due to liability and insurance. If they don't have them they can't be accredited, and if you don't follow them the hospital will basically wash its hands of you in the case of a lawsuit or coroners case. Also the UK used to have a system of flying squads where a specialist team could rush out to the aid of a GP or community midwife experiencing trouble at a birth. Such a shame they got rid of these as it would enable many more women to birth safely at home.
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