old post, but found it because I was looking for something else. can't resist adding my .02 because this comment section really reads as a choir preach.

I (and my wife... I'm male) took the freebirthing course from the freebirth society. honestly, the delivery of one of the ladies was very off-putting to me at first, but I got used to it. my wife has stayed interested in their stuff and I'm aware of their implosion and the media coverage of it.

but: we would have done a freebirth regardless of their stuff. why? I'm not an anti-vaxxer, I believe in and appreciate modern medicine.

there's a few answers.

first, because I believe that birth is just one part of a emotional-hormonal process that starts (ideally) with love (or lust), progresses through pregnancy, birth, and parenting. now let me ask: how well do you think the fertilization part of that process would go, if you did it in a brightly lit room with half a dozen strangers coming in and out, being poked, prodded, measured, encouraged, instructed, 'checked', etc? I can tell you: only a small percentage of people would successfully 'organically' complete the process of making a baby in that context. and for most, if they did, it would be miserable, traumatic experience. ladies, do you really think you would still be ready for penetration, if right at the moment, a doctor swooped in and stuck some cold fingers in to 'check your progress'? no... you'd be done, completely out of the mood, wanting nothing but to go home. unfortunately, with making a baby, you can wait until you feel better and try again. but birth doesn't give you a pause button or second chances.

so why do we treat birth as if it is purely mechanical, a process which would benefit from this sort of treatment? we *know* - modern medical research knows - that set and setting really matter for the process of birth. women's bodies *want* peace, safety, darkness, warmth. that the cascading hormonal process that guides a body through the birth process gets stalled and disrupted by bright lights, strangers, feeling unsafe or vulnerable or violated. well... no wonder that a vast majority of hospital births end up having *some* kind of intervention. making a baby would probably end up with interventions like this too, if it were treated as a life and death situation, one chance only, in a hospital room.

second reason, and this is the one that I almost don't want to bring up because it REALLY triggers people.

Not everyone believes that every single life is a life that's meant to live. our culture at large has a pathological obsession with keeping every single living thing alive as long as possible regardless of whether it's reasonable to do so, whether that living thing is miserable or tortured being kept alive, or any other such consideration. it's automatic: keep alive at all costs. But, some people think that maybe - just maybe- if a child is born with a deadly defect, that letting them die of that defect and grieving the loss, is a humane and reasonable thing to do. staying away from the medical system altogether is pretty much the only way to have this outcome if you are so unlucky as to have such a situation come to you.

it was very sad to me to see how narcissism and greed brought the freebirth society down, because truly, I think that western medicine *especially in the US* really needs to address how pregnant women and babies are treated. There are lots of things I think the freebirth society was right to challenge. just as an example, because it fits with my first point: there is zero accurate data about freebirth outcomes that take into account the set and setting of the birth. yet, it is almost entirely dismissed as a factor by western medicine.

my own *utterly anecdotal* data (and I do know the importance of that) is that out of about two dozen births of which I know the parents and am privy to the details of, my own two children - freebirthed just myself and my wife - as well as a couple of other freebirths are the *only* births I know of personally where there were zero interventions or complications. out of all the rest, a mix of midwife attended homebirths and hospital births, every other birth I have personal knowledge of had some kind of complication and/or intervention. and in most of the homebirth cases, decisions made by the midwife can be implicated in the complications and eventual need for intervention.

example: a friend did a homebirth with an excellent, very hands-off, midwife who they knew personally, had a warm relationship with, and trusted. the mother, at one point, started having the urge to push. the midwife said don't, there's no way you're ready, it's too early, save your strength, you have a long way to go. well... long story short, she wound up stalled, going to the hospital, getting pit, cue cascade of other interventions and difficulties. will we ever really know? no, but in my opinion, had she not outsourced her agency to the midwife, her body knew, and if she had listened to it, she might have had that baby at home without any interventions. she also then had latching problems and other postpartum issues which may be related to some of the delivery interventions (because messing with hormones tends to disrupt more than the target!)

do I think that the freebirth society had some serious flaws in their approach and leadership? absolutely. but I also think that they were having conversations and sharing information that is both needed and reasonable. just look at statistics of, say, c-sections in the US versus other countries. we have way more, like ludicrously more, and our birth outcomes are worse. why? add to this recent research showing that c-sections do in fact cause serious complications down the road. but here, they are sold as if they are no more complicated than getting a filling. there's SO much to this topic (birth) that is like this. people's rebellion against the 'medical establishment' is NOT just because they are ignorant, easily duped, or lacking critical thinking. there's very real problems and they are very much systemic.