"People have opinions and heated discussions about how dangerous freebirth is and how reckless and negligent these families are. But I think it's a better use of our time and energy to ask the question: Why are these women willing to go to the absolute edge to avoid the medical system?"
You may have heard the news recently that an influencer named Stacey Werneke died due to a catastrophic postpartum hemorrhage after giving birth to her baby at home unassisted (freebirth). This has sparked a lot of discussion online about freebirth, as these stories tend to do. Most of the arguments are that freebirth is dangerous and leads to preventable deaths. Before I get into my thoughts about freebirth, I want to recognize and honor that a mother, a wife, and a beloved family member & friend has died. There are people grieving, and a little girl who will grow up without her mom. This story is tragic, and while I appreciate the discussion it's sparked, I don't want to overshadow that fact. My heart goes out to all of them.
Before we talk about freebirth and whether or not it's safe, I think it's important to define what freebirth actually means. In the simplest terms, freebirth means giving birth without a medical provider and/or midwife in attendance. It does NOT necessarily mean giving birth alone.
The ability to have a home birth attended by a skilled provider is highly dependent on the laws where you live. For example, in the state of Nebraska, there are no legally-allowed home birth providers. Meaning, your home birth is legal, but having a provider in attendance is not. For this reason, you could argue that every home birth in Nebraska is a "freebirth". There are also a lot of restrictions on providers in other states, including restrictions on twins, VBAC, breech, and other conditions where a mother will "risk out" of midwifery care, leaving her only the option of going to a hospital, or going it alone.
My career as a birth worker actually started with 2 "freebirths" in the state of Nebraska. The first was a true free-birth, with no midwife in attendance. The mother was a well-educated doula who invited her good friend to support her, as well as myself as the photographer. Her first baby had been born via c-section 7 years prior, and this time she decided to give birth at home, without the support of a medical provider (due to limited options). She had a plan for emergencies, and everything went smoothly. I went on to attend 2 more of her freebirths.
The second birth I attended was a traditional midwife attended birth. The midwife had traditional skills and wisdom, but was not a "medical provider." She did, however, know how to recognize when a higher level of care was necessary. That birth happened smoothly with no complications.
I have attended several other home births in Nebraska, some attended by only the mother and father, some attended by doulas or friends, and some attended by traditional/lay midwives. Some of those births transferred to the hospital when a higher level of care became necessary - despite hesitancy from the mother to do so.
The narrative that gets repeated is that women who choose freebirth are reckless, uninformed, anti-science, or being manipulated by social media. In my experience, that's rarely true. Most women choosing freebirth have spent hundreds of hours researching birth. They've read books, listened to the podcasts, studied physiology, confronted all of their fears and "what ifs," and walked into their birth feeling deeply grounded in their decision. Many have also had previous experiences within the medical system where they felt ignored, coerced, traumatized, or deeply failed by the system. And most of the time, their births go off without a hitch, or they simply transfer when a higher level of care becomes necessary.
Stories like Stacey's create such an uproar because people can't understand why she would put her life in danger in favor of no medical intervention. People have opinions and heated discussions about how dangerous freebirth is and how reckless and negligent these families are.
But I think it's a better use of our time and energy to ask the question: Why are these women willing to go to the absolute edge to avoid the medical system?
Whether you believe in freebirth or not, that question should be the center of these discussions. Humans have a deep, instinctual drive for survival and protection of their baby. So what would make someone override those instincts at all costs in order to avoid medical intervention?
Maybe it's because we minimize the dangers of the medical system. Or maybe it's because they have significant enough trauma from the medical system that there's so little trust or sense of safety that they feel safer without it until they're at the brink of death.
Let's remember that ideas help us expand and evolve, while ideologies constrict. Some argue that being so against medical intervention (aka an ideology that the medical system is bad) is dangerous. But we forget that the ideology exists on the other side too - that hospitals are the safest place for all people to give birth, and anything outside of that is negligent.