The Tea & Toast team are delighted to bring you June's episode, which considers issues around freebirth. As result of pressures during the COVID-19 pandemic, some maternity services have suspended access to home birth or midwifery led units, meaning that some women may not be able to access the place of birth that they had planned. It seems possible that this has led to an increase in the number of women opting for freebirth / unassisted birth, and this month the team ponder some of the issues this may raise.

Episode 3 - Freebirth

Resources

AIMS (2020) Freebirth, unassisted childbirth and unassisted pregnancy. https://www.aims.org.uk/information/item/freebirth

Feeley C, Burns E, Adams E, Thomson G.(2015) Why do some women choose to freebirth? A meta-thematic synthesis, part one. Evidence Based Midwifery. 13(1):4–9

Feeley, C., Thomson, G. (2016) Why do some women choose to freebirth in the UK? An interpretative phenomenological study. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 16 (59)

Claire Feeley, C. & Thomson, G. (2016) Tensions and conflicts in ‘choice’: women’s experiences of freebirthing in the UK. Midwifery. 41, 16-21.

Nightingale, L. (2011) Midwives are an unevaluated intervention in birth. Midwifery Matters. 130.

Renfrew, M. J., Homer, C. S. E., Downe, S., McFadden, A., Muir, N., Prentice, T., ten Hoope-Bender, P. (2014) Midwifery: An Executive Summary for The Lancet’s Series, The Lancet, June 2014.

Royal College of Midwives (2020) RCM Clinical Briefing Sheet: ‘freebirth’ or ‘unassisted childbirth’ during the COVID-19 pandemic. https://www.rcm.org.uk/media/3904/freebirth_draft_23-april-v5-002-mrd-1.pdf