These women are so enraging, because they are actually causing more harm to women. Rather than empowering all women to have better birthing experiences, it becomes a test of how worthy you are just to survive. It’s not about doing any real work but opting out of a system that you don’t like, and are hopefully lucky enough not to need. There are a lot of problems with our modern birthing system, I’ve experienced them first hand. We should advocate for better experiences for all women. I can get pregnant really easy, but I have a disorder that makes my pregnancy high-risk. It means daily injections of blood thinners or I will have a stillbirth, which I experienced before knowing I had this condition. It means even with careful medication and monitoring I can have complications like sudden severe preeclampsia that requires a lot of medical intervention to save me and the baby, which I’ve also experienced. There wasn’t really treatment or awareness of this condition even a generation ago. I’m the woman in history who had countless miscarriages and stillbirths, and likely died from pregnancy complications. I’m guessing these women don’t actually read history, or they just believe they will somehow magically avoid all that. I had two traumatic pregnancies, and two fairly (for me) uneventful ones. I was able to have mostly natural deliveries with those two, but was required to do it a hospital setting where I had to fight over and over for that right. I was quite often treated miserably by medical professionals who largely were uninterested in me having a positive birth experience, and dismissed my voice constantly. These women don’t care about other women though. I guess if you end up needing intervention then it is your own fault for however you are treated. To them it’s just all about making money by selling an idea that may or may not work out but really won’t affect them either way. My grandmother was a “good”Catholic woman who gave birth twelve times. She had no problems birthing overall. She died in her early 60’s, though, from a serious autoimmune disease. I imagine the toll all those years of pregnancy had on her body didn’t help. She barely saw the last kid out of the house before passing away.
Every time someone writes about free birth the way you did, Sara, I want to hug them and immediately buy them a drink and say thank you. And I want to do this because MY BABY AND I WOULD HAVE DIED. An educated, wealthy, white woman with relatively easy access to prenatal care with a wanted, healthy pregnancy still had to get flown across the state because of an obstetrical emergency. Women dying or coming close to it isn’t rare in America, it’s just that so few people in power give a shit. So thank you for writing so well on this topic that makes me absolutely blind with rage.
Wow. Wow wow wow. Wow. I don’t even know how to react. The hubris of the free birth movement. The grift. The hypocrisy. The gross disregard for actual people and actual babies. The vampiric suck of real injustice to rationalize and energize their self-serving crusade. Wow.
I just get so sad at the free birth movement. Aware of my biases and luck, midwives are some of the absolute most fantastic care I've ever received within medicine! I've had three different midwives in three different pregncies for out of hospital births, and I've been so taken care of- and free birth undoes all of this.
Have you seen Alex Auder’s IG stories pretending to be @bahauswife? They got me thru the pandemic. Hadn’t thought about her much sense. Thank you for writing about this!!
These women are so enraging, because they are actually causing more harm to women. Rather than empowering all women to have better birthing experiences, it becomes a test of how worthy you are just to survive. It’s not about doing any real work but opting out of a system that you don’t like, and are hopefully lucky enough not to need. There are a lot of problems with our modern birthing system, I’ve experienced them first hand. We should advocate for better experiences for all women. I can get pregnant really easy, but I have a disorder that makes my pregnancy high-risk. It means daily injections of blood thinners or I will have a stillbirth, which I experienced before knowing I had this condition. It means even with careful medication and monitoring I can have complications like sudden severe preeclampsia that requires a lot of medical intervention to save me and the baby, which I’ve also experienced. There wasn’t really treatment or awareness of this condition even a generation ago. I’m the woman in history who had countless miscarriages and stillbirths, and likely died from pregnancy complications. I’m guessing these women don’t actually read history, or they just believe they will somehow magically avoid all that. I had two traumatic pregnancies, and two fairly (for me) uneventful ones. I was able to have mostly natural deliveries with those two, but was required to do it a hospital setting where I had to fight over and over for that right. I was quite often treated miserably by medical professionals who largely were uninterested in me having a positive birth experience, and dismissed my voice constantly. These women don’t care about other women though. I guess if you end up needing intervention then it is your own fault for however you are treated. To them it’s just all about making money by selling an idea that may or may not work out but really won’t affect them either way. My grandmother was a “good”Catholic woman who gave birth twelve times. She had no problems birthing overall. She died in her early 60’s, though, from a serious autoimmune disease. I imagine the toll all those years of pregnancy had on her body didn’t help. She barely saw the last kid out of the house before passing away.
Every time someone writes about free birth the way you did, Sara, I want to hug them and immediately buy them a drink and say thank you. And I want to do this because MY BABY AND I WOULD HAVE DIED. An educated, wealthy, white woman with relatively easy access to prenatal care with a wanted, healthy pregnancy still had to get flown across the state because of an obstetrical emergency. Women dying or coming close to it isn’t rare in America, it’s just that so few people in power give a shit. So thank you for writing so well on this topic that makes me absolutely blind with rage.
Wow. Wow wow wow. Wow. I don’t even know how to react. The hubris of the free birth movement. The grift. The hypocrisy. The gross disregard for actual people and actual babies. The vampiric suck of real injustice to rationalize and energize their self-serving crusade. Wow.
I just get so sad at the free birth movement. Aware of my biases and luck, midwives are some of the absolute most fantastic care I've ever received within medicine! I've had three different midwives in three different pregncies for out of hospital births, and I've been so taken care of- and free birth undoes all of this.
I adored my midwives!
Have you seen Alex Auder’s IG stories pretending to be @bahauswife? They got me thru the pandemic. Hadn’t thought about her much sense. Thank you for writing about this!!
um NOOOOOO will check out immediately!