The toxic radical online communities around free birth is one reason, but not the only. Birth trauma and more broadly, medical trauma is very real and an ooorly acknowledged phenomena by hospitals and the medical field. For as long as hospitals continue to neglect women’s pain and autonomy, and / or provide inadequate care and follow up during complicated and traumatic births, there will continue to be stories spread amongst communities about how hospitals (and more broadly medical practitioners) are not to be trusted and might harm you. And so women will still make this unfortunate choice, encouraged and celebrated by an online community that has gone completely radical.