The Mule

Freedom for Birth, a new documentary film about human rights in childbirth, was screened in over a thousand locations across the world last Thursday, and I was there, keen to take part in a 'Mother's Revolution' supported by leading lights from the field - Ina May Gaskin, Sheila Kitzinger, Michel Odent - all calling for women to 'take back birth'. The film took as its focus the plight of Agnes Gereb, the Hungarian midwife currently under house arrest for attending women in illegal home births, and the related case of Ternovszky vs. Hungary, in which the European Court of Human Rights ruled that every woman has the right to choose where and how she gives birth. Quite clearly, there are some circumstances in which the compromise of freedom and the violation of human rights are tangible, for example when imprisonment is involved, or, as in another case touched on in the film, a woman's baby was taken away on the grounds of negligence because she has refused med...

Lots of women want to give birth in a way that is natural, drug free and empowering, but often, this aspiration ends in intervention, and rather than the transformative rite of passage they were hoping for, many women begin their new lives as mothers feeling, at best, bruised and a little disappointed; at worst, violated and traumatised. Why is this? What is preventing women's dreams, visions and hopes for their birth experience from becoming a reality? Could it be that - Women's Bodies are not Fit for Purpose : Through some evolutionary error, women have a design fault that makes it nigh on impossible to give birth without help. Maybe the baby's head is too big, perhaps her pelvis is too small; whatever the reason, there's a mismatch here and women would be better off opting for an elective section than getting themselves all fired up and unrealistic about a candle lit water birth. Or maybe - Obstetricians are Evil Scissor-Happy Misogynists : Labour Wards are p...

A compilation of resources for women seeking a positive, drug free, intervention free, empowering birth! If you would like to suggest additions to this list, please email me or add them in the comments below. Books Ina May's Guide to Childbirth - Ina May Gaskin Spiritual Midwifery - Ina May Gaskin Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta - Ina May Gaskin Childbirth Without Fear - Grantly Dick Read Birth and Breastfeeding - Michel Odent Birthing from Within - Pam England The Water Birth Book - Janet Balaskas Birth Your Way - Sheila Kitzinger Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful - Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa Home Births: Stories to Inspire and Inform - Abigail Cairns The Father's Home Birth Handbook - Leah Hazard Gentle Birth Companions: Doulas Serving Humanity - Adela Stockton Memoirs of a Singing Birth - Elena Skoko Sheila Kitzinger - Birth and Sex Books For Children Hello Baby - Jenny Overend and Julie Vivas Our Water Baby - Amy Maclean and J Nesbitt Websites www...

This past week on the blog has been a Birth Story Special, and I've been thrilled to introduce five wonderful birth stories in five days.  We've heard about an emergency caesarian , a freebirth , a home birth with a doula , and two very different stories of induction, one that felt unnecessary , and one that saved a baby's life .  First and foremost I'd like to say a big thank you to the women who shared these stories, not just for the time they took to write them so beautifully, but also for allowing us to look in on moments in their lives that were intimate, special, or even difficult and traumatic. My aim in all of this was to build a picture of birth in the UK today, of what is being got right, and what might need to change.  From reading these powerful stories, and your comments on each post and on the facebook page for this blog , I have really enjoyed the chance to chew over this very difficult question, and although this has only lead me to further questio...