Our middle boys Felix and Cosmo woke up early today (5:30) and bounded into our room, asking if they could go out into the jungle behind our house, to the swimming hole at the river to check their crayfish traps before we started school (6am). They returned, elated, with six crayfish and a crab, and while they proceeded to kill the animals and then boil them for breakfast (they have determined that it’s more ethical to kill them first before cooking), they informed me of their plan to clean up the homeless man’s stash of empty fresca and flor de cana bottles at their hideout, and prepare the swimming hole so I can give birth there.
I’m touched by the sentiment, but I find it hard to imagine feeling any desire to leave my cozy room and traipse out to the wilderness (especially in the tropical heat) to give birth exposed, in the wild, but who knows? Every birth is its own emotional landscape.
It’s hard to believe I’m about to meet my tenth baby in a matter of weeks. In so many ways, this pregnancy has been very much like all the others…but I also can’t help but reflect on the ways that I really have quite radically mellowed over the years, shifted my perspectives, sloughed off various layers of fear, and feel so much more at ease now than I did as a very young mother.
It’s also fascinating to me to feel into the ways that carrying and nurturing this particular baby–as with each of my children– is so entirely new, and mysterious, and specific to this child’s soul-being.
Once again, I’m standing at the precipice of the long journey through the cosmos; the great abyss. This time, I’ll be giving birth in the beautiful house we’re renting this year (or possibly in the jungly river) near where our own property is being renovated, and for the first time in years, I feel like we’re home–home in our adoptive country of Nicaragua (which I have to admit, I have struggled to settle into until recently), and I so very much at home in my my body, in the mystery of wild pregnancy, and in decision to freebirth my baby, although wild pregnancy and freebirth aren’t even so much “choices” for me anymore so much as inevitabilities–it’s just a given that pregnancy and birth are extensions of my life, my self, my values, my worldview. Wild pregnancy and freebirth are my default, my normal.
I certainly do live in a wonderful vortex of my own making–I eat, sleep, live, and breathe sovereign birth and sovereign health. Lucky little me. The nice thing is that you can do it too.
It’s incredible to realize that since releasing the bestselling course The Complete Guide to Freebirth (on sale now for 50% off, only until 11/30/23 with the code FBSHALFOFF) with my dear friend and colleague Emilee Saldaya in 2018, the birth liberation movement has exploded across the planet as it has, but it still surprises me when I am occasionally confronted by the bizarre assumptions, fears, and misunderstandings that people seem dedicated to promoting when it comes to such a normal, basic, biological unfolding as birth.
It can sometimes seem as though alongside the revolution that is undoubtedly taking place among women reclaiming birth, there has been a concurrent proliferation of myths and misconceptions about what freebirth really means.
I decided to have a little fun while putting together what I see as the top myths and misunderstandings about Freebirth:
To have a powerful sovereign birth, let alone a freebirth, a woman must give birth entirely alone.
Of course not. Many women freebirth with the support of partners, older children, family members and friends. Freebirth does not necessarily mean solo birth, though solo birth is just as valid a choice as any (and certainly has many benefits to which I can personally attest).
Freebirth is inherently dangerous and unsafe.
This is entirely a matter of perspective, worldview, and values. I happen to think that hospital birth is inherently dangerous and unsafe, and I would never choose that option. I also recognize that every woman has the indelible right, by virtue of her humanity, to determine for herself where her boundaries lie, and what constitutes safety and risk based on her subjective values and priorities, and hers alone. No other person, institution, or perceived external authority is entitled to a monopoly on what defines safety or risk for another individual, and certainly not in the context of a grown woman’s birth choices.
Freebirth is never traumatic.
This is one of the most bizarre claims I’ve come across yet, and bizarrely, it’s one that seems to be made exclusively by those seeking to condemn the freebirth community by crafting strawman arguments and false narratives.
Desperate trolls aside, I have certainly never made this assertion, nor have I ever encountered any other freebirth supporters saying such a thing.
Of course freebirth can be traumatic! Walking to the park can be traumatic. Line dancing can be traumatic. Installing a curtain rod can be traumatic. Life is full of mystery, surprise, and the future is always unknown.
It is certainly the case that in my experience and by my observation, women who choose freebirth tend, on average, to experience far less trauma than those who are abused by obstetricians and midwives, and this is largely by default. Given that most obstetricians and midwives are trained to sabotage birth, and given that the sabotage of birth tends to lead to trauma (obviously), when we decline to involve saboteurs, we eliminate that particular variable.
Furthermore, freebirth usually implies and involves creating a setting in which the mother is the authority over her experience, and there is a strong correlation (again, by my observation) between self-determination and autonomy, and experiencing birth as powerful, euphoric, and joyful.
Life, however, is not always predictable, and most of us have a high degree of expertise in finding numerous ways to complicate things for ourselves, which can mean that even the most well-planned and ostensibly simple experiences (birth, line-dancing, and curtain-rod-hanging) can sometimes involve unexpected trauma.
Freebirth can happen in the hospital.
Well, I don’t think so, but if you are the kind of person who prefers to alter the English language to suit your personal preferences, to buttress your ego, to validate the choices you’ve made, or to mask your delusion and self-doubt, then by all means—call a spoon a peacock feather, call your dog the president, and call your hospital birth a “freebirth.”
I like to use English as precisely as possible as a tool for describing reality, for the purposes of effective communication, and I have found that I’m not very interested in engaging with people who make things up to accommodate their personal fantasies, but that’s just me.
Freebirth is “unrealistic.”
All I can say to this one is…it certainly is, if that’s your commitment, and it will definitely be “unrealistic” for you if you are a devoted victim, unwilling to take full responsibility for your life, your choices, or your birth.
That said, in my twenty-plus years of work in the realm of birth, I have supported, taught, and witnessed thousands of women claim their sovereign birth experiences, who have proven that freebirth is exceptionally realistic, including my own nine children who have passed through my own vagina into the world in the absence of any medical intervention, surveillance, or oversight.
But if spontaneous birth seems “unrealistic” to you, then you had best seek professional help, by all means.
6. There are “freebirth midwives” and “freebirth doulas.”
Nope, not in my opinion. But I’m also not the word-police, and as always, if you want to call a potato a hydraulic engine, go for it.
I use the word “freebirth” to signify the choice to give birth outside of the medical/midwifery industrial complex entirely and in the absence of any paid or trained “experts,” because that choice is distinct in many ways from the decision to invite a professional to support you. Therefore concepts like “freebirth doula” and “freebirth midwife” are, to my mind, contradictions in terms.
More significantly, I think the underlying reason that women often describe their attended births as “freebirths,” is because they may unconsciously believe that having had a doula or midwife present somehow makes their births lesser than—less exciting, less significant, less brave, less interesting—than freebirth, and this, in my opinion, is very unfortunate and sad to me.
As I see it, there is no hierarchy when it comes to birth choices. I love my first two births (which were attended by an unlicensed midwife) just as much as I love my subsequent seven freebirths.
Why not celebrate that you had a wonderful attended birth that you loved, and simply own that? If you’re describing your doula-attended homebirth as a freebirth, I encourage you to ask yourself where that urge to embellish the story might be coming from.
7. Freebirth is selfish.
Yes, freebirth is selfish!
To care about oneself as a mother is to care about our babies. We are our babies. Pregnant women are inseparable from our children—we are in an interdependent, symbiotic, reciprocal relationship with the babies in our wombs.
The suggestion that pregnant women are making birth choices selfishly as though this is a bad thing, or as though only a specific kind of birth choice represents the correct sort of selfishness (or selflessness, even), betrays an enormous degree of ignorance and frankly, misogyny and inhumanity.
Moreover, in my experience, women who choose to give birth outside of the industrial obstetric system often think far more deeply about safety and risk than those who follow medical guidelines.
In my twenty-plus years of work in birth, I have yet to encounter a mother who has approached her freebirth without anything other than deep consideration, dedication, and care for the wellbeing of her child as an extension of her highest and noblest self.
8. Freebirth is romanticized and idealistic.
That would be a wholehearted YES! Freebirth, for me, is absolutely romantic and ideal.
Embracing the birth process in the sanctuary of my home, as the apex of intimacy, and as part of the continuum of love, sexuality, and creation that I share only with my husband is one of the most romantic things I can imagine. The decision I have made, to take each of my baby’s births into my own hands (literally) and to bring them into the world in peace and power represents the most ideal expression of love, sovereignty, and joy available. Freebirth is, to my mind, the most rightfully idealized experience we have as human beings. That might not necessarily be true for everyone, and it doesn’t have to be. Free to disagree, and to go give birth in a hospital.
9. The term “freebirth” was coined by me and Emilee Saldaya.
Nope! The late, great, pioneer midwife and mystic Jeannine Parvati-Baker coined the terms “freebirth” and “birthkeeper,” and we are so grateful for Jeannine’s work and her enduring legacy.
10. Freebirth advocates lie about risk and deny the possibility of death.
I have never known this to be the case among any of the freebirth enthusiasts I have known and loved over the years, and I have always been utterly transparent about the inarguable fact that death is an ever-present possibility at every stage of life, including infancy, no matter where we choose to give birth to our babies.
Sometimes babies die. Whether at home, or in the hospital, death can and does happen, and I have supported mothers who have experienced loss in a variety of contexts–I myself have also experienced loss as a mother.
Despite the fact that we are sold the story that hospital birth represents the least risk, this is an assumption based on a monopolistic projection of institutional values for which many mothers can find ample “evidence” supporting the very opposite conclusion.
Unfortunately, when a baby dies in hospital, their death is overwhelmingly framed as inevitable. When a baby dies at home, however, the assumption is (more often than not) that someone is to blame, the mother was negligent, and/or medical professionals could have saved them.
But the truth is that no one can possibly know any of that definitively.
11. Freebirth just simply isn’t an option for every woman.
I hear this all the time and it drives me nuts. Freebirth is absolutely an option for every single mother on earth. All that is required to freebirth is…to stay home and have your baby. It’s really as simple as that.
Of course, there are a multitude of reasons why women might not want to choose freebirth, but that does not preclude the inarguable that freebirth is indeed an option for literally every woman on this planet.
Does that mean that there may not be consequences as a result of that choice that some women might not want? Of course not. Every choice has consequences. But you absolutely have the option.
Here’s an example. I would be considered “high risk” according to an obstetrician on the following bases:
I’m 42 years old
I’m having my 10th baby
I have had several prior miscarriages
I’m RH negative
I experienced uterine prolapse after the birth of my third baby (I healed that myself, but nonetheless)
eight out of my NINE older babies were born at almost 44 weeks…
and…I’m sure there’s more. I’m also pretty sure that every obstetrician would very solemnly tell me that freebirth just…”isn’t an option for me,” and they would come up with all sorts of reasons to support their story that my baby is probably going to die.
This does not mean that freebirth isn’t an “option” for me at all, it means that I can either believe the medical narrative, or not, and take my chances either way, which is exactly true for every other woman.
We can’t know the future. I cannot know that I or my baby will survive our upcoming birth. All I can do—which is all anyone can do—is assess safety and risk on the basis of what I know to be true, and on my personal values, priorities, history, and belief system. The suggestion that freebirth “isn’t an option” is pure victimhood. If you don’t want to have a freebirth, then don’t. No need to explain. You have no obligation to anyone other than yourself and by extension, your baby.
12. Freebirth is a cult.
If you define “cult” to mean an organic movement of people across the planet with a shared interest in reclaiming freedom, self-ownership, individual biological autonomy, inalienable rights, and radical sovereignty within the context of childbirth, a universal and spontaneous expression of nature and the source of humanity itself (not to mention a process common to all mammals on earth), then I guess it is a cult. But that’s not how I understand the meaning of the word “cult.”
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