Mothers who planned freebirths that ended in a hospital transfer say they've been "gaslit" or "abandoned" by birth workers and kicked out of group chats meant to support them. The movement is facing increasing criticism for "groupthink" and "extremism".
Ah yes, yet another way to control and hurt women. The whole idea of medical care during birth is based on situations where you happen to need it. If things go well, they go well. Being at the hospital or having a midwife is about when things go off the rails. The vast majority of people want you and your child to survive childbirth, which is a dangerous and difficult process for many out there. Anyone who says "just don't have help you might need, it'll be fine" is either a liar or actively trying to harm you.
This is just another branch of "under the hood" religious nutjobiness like Tradwives which all boils down to active alt-right control over women.
How the hell do you blame this on religion or the alt right? Did you read the whole article? This is that earthy/hippy branch of conspiracy theorists who praise anything not "natural". These aren't MAGA anti vaccers or Christian fundamentalist. These are praise Gaia our Earth mother assholes who think water isn't a chemical or Gwyneth Paltro vagina eggs are fine because women.
The cultist practices in general didn't even have a religious motif nor a real political affiliation. The women in this group are hurting themselves by letting a bunch of dumbass women with zero medical training supervise their births. This is just stupid ppl listening to other stupid ppl
My ex and I worked on a birth plan for our second child after her experience with our first was deeply unsatisfying. We discussed home birth but I insisted on a birthing center attached to a hospital in case something went sideways. She found an OB who listened to her, and we made clear what our birthing plan was, and that was respected by the medical staff. As it happened, the labor was smooth and relatively quick, and home birth would have been fine. I’m still glad we were at a facility where there would have been no lag between a problem arising and a doctor being able to address it.
The ABC contacted the birth worker, but she declined an interview and advised reporters not to contact "any of the women or families I may or may not have served, past, present or future".
3/4 of mine were born at home, but with midwife, 5 minutes from a hospital, and she won't attend if you don't agree to be transferred if necessary. Hospital birth when my kids were born really was over medicalized - the hospital by me had a C-section rate of over 50%, literally worse than a coin flip, they had you lay on your back, still, with monitors, it was designed to fail.
I think now the hospitals have come around to some of the home birth ideas, if you are low risk you can walk around, give birth in a position that works for you, eat and drink for longer, better chance of natural uncomplicated birth that way.
50% seems like an overstatement, but who cares if the hospital uses c-sections regularly? Much like people's lower jaws are evolving to be smaller over time and we're experiencing many health issues related to teeth overcrowding (due to people having processed food and needing to chew hard foods less often) - we're experiencing changes in childbirth too. Women are having children much later in life in western nations, which causes narrower pelvises, and they're having heavier babies.. Both of which lead to much higher likelihood of natural birth complications, especially when you factor in the obesity epidemic. So yes, c-sections are becoming more common - to ensure the child and mother are safe through the birth.
I care, because C-section is much more dangerous for both mother and child, much harder to recover from major abdominal surgery than vaginal birth, reduces chance of successful breastfeeding, and because, since it wasn't so high in other places, does imply they were routinely doing something to cause labor to stall. Which they were. And no, no way is 50% reasonable.
My youngest is 18, oldest 30. So this was not recent. They are down to 37% now, which is still out of line with hospital standards.