“Freebirthing” to air on the Discovery Health Channel

Jenny%20with%20Ben%20three%20days%20after%20the%20birth.jpg
I am thrilled to announce that the Discovery Health Channel is going to show the Freebirth Documentary tonight at 7pm mountain time.
Since 1989 I have been working diligently to learn everything I could about home birth. Giving birth to my own five children, and teaching childbirth class in my home for eight years was the stepping stone to my online birth activism that began in 1997.
The goal was simple, mainstream homebirth and make it possible for any woman to give birth in whatever setting she felt was appropriate for her child.
Unassisted Childbirth was and is the answer for any couple that honestly wants to have a peak experience welcoming their own children into their lives.
Wether McCain or Obama win the presidency, the fact is that we as a nation are moving towards socialized medicine, and when we get socialized fully in America, childbirth is going to be about a million times more dangerous in the hospital than it already is, for mothers and babies.
Taking personal responsibility for our health: including prenatal care, birth, and postpartum infant care is the key to families being able to weather whatever storms may blow in our nation.
Learning these skills for myself has been the key to ultimate female empowerment and fulfillment. I testify in the name of Jesus Christ that gentle, ecstatic birth will heal women of all that ails them, physically, emotional, and spiritually. I have experienced it and I know this is the JOY that our Heavenly Parents want us to feel when we are welcoming our children into our homes.
Laura Shanley has a new blog post sharing the details around the new Discovery Health Documentary Freebirth.
Go Here to read the post.
And a new web site titled Freebirthing that Laura Shanley put together has some video clips and still pictures from the Documentary.
QUOTE:

“While this is not brought out in the program, nine pregnant women were actually interviewed for the documentary, and all nine went on to successfully give birth at home unassisted. None of the women sought medical care during the births, and only two sought non-emergency care after the births – one for a slow placenta (that came out easily, on its own in the hospital), and another for stitches.

For more information about this program please contact Laura Shanley. To learn more about unassisted childbirth visit:
Bornfree! The Unassisted Childbirth Page.
Discovery Health
Tune In: Freebirthing

A growing movement of women in the US and in the UK are defying medical advice and choosing to give birth with no drugs, no midwife and absolutely no medical support. Supporters claim it’s how having a baby was always meant to be. Doctors say this new ‘freebirthing’ craze carries great risks.

In this program, we chart the stories of three pregnant women who have decided to go against the advice of their doctors and go it alone. With intimate access, we follow the challenges they have to overcome from negative family opinions and medics, to their own fears and through to the eventual and extraordinary births.

Watch the premiere, Tuesday, October 21 at 9 pm on Discovery Health!
Freebirth: A Message to Obstetricians from Jenny Hatch
Here is my own Joyful Freebirth Movie:


Jenny Hatch

For someone who wears Wal Mart clothes, I guess it’s hip to be cool

Fashionable ‘freebirths’? Birth is about baby’s survival, not being trendy
Yet another tsk, tsk from our pals across the pond. Some of us choose Freebirth because we want the best for our babes and for the long term emotional and spiritual development of our families.
But hey, if the Leslie Thomas thinks it is trendy to birth alone at home…I’ll go with it. Never considered myself much of a fashion queen, actually, I am the anti-fashion fem. I have absolutely no fashion sense, I wear what is comfortable and on sale….either at the thrift store or Wal Mart.
Jenny Hatch

Spirit Led Birth: Susana Baig – Freebirth Trendy and Competitive or not

Susana Baig has some choice thoughts about Freebirth being “Trendy”.
I wholeheartedly applaud and endorse her words:
Link to the Telegraph Article she is responding to.

I have given birth unassisted 4 times. I do not birth this way for bragging rights or some competition. I did it because my two midwife attended hospital births were terrifying, painful and humiliating.

During my hospital births I didn’t get an episiotomy, even though the instruments were all laid out. I didn’t need forceps even though I was stuck in bed with my feet in stirrups with no less than 4 people staring at my crotch. I didn’t need a cesarean even though I had a monitor strapped to me. I didn’t get an epidural even though I cried like a baby.

Yes, vaginal birth in the hospital is possible, but let me tell you it was hard to do! Though I was able to birth vaginally, I would not call them natural births. And frankly I felt like a victim, powerless to help myself.

During our 4 freebirths I didn’t get any vaginal checks and didn’t even birth in bed (I actually gave birth in a different position every time, standing, sitting, kneeling.)

And guess what… I didn’t cry like a baby nor feel helpless. I enjoyed it, felt in control of my own body, and felt spiritually connected. (How dare I!)

Following my hospital births, yet before my UC births, I gave birth at home once with a midwife. I didn’t cry during that birth either but the midwife pressured me during labor and needlessly insisted on breaking my water.

I don’t embrace uc because it’s “trendy.” It seems to me what’s trendy and bragged about are the epidural and scheduled c-sections.

I can’t tell you how many women I have offered to help achieve a natural birth and they have almost all responded,”I don’t want a natural birth. I just want my epidural!”

Guess what…. If you don’t want a UC, don’t have one! But I believe that having a natural, private, powerful yet painless birth is almost impossible in the hospital so I have chosen UC.

How about spending your time writing articles that encourage the medical establishment to bridge the divide and provide better communication and a safety net for homebirths. We shouldn’t have to be completely on our own if we want a uc or midwife assisted homebirth. I wouldn’t have minded having a doctor, midwife or hospital to communicate with in case of emergency. But as it is now a days, (in my state esp.) there is this great chasm.

I know many believe that homebirthers don’t deserve help in case of emergency. Problems are their own fault because of their audacity!

To me that just shows how competitive and proud hospital birthers are. Such thoughts also reveal the “controlling perfectionist instincts,” that doctors and midwives are exhibiting on behalf of their “work place.”

Fullerton Woman Gives Birth On Front Lawn

Fullerton Woman Gives Birth On Front Lawn
Dead Mama? Nope.
Dead Baby? Nope.
Mother and baby just fine…
Birth does NOT kill mothers and babes – too many drugs and knives are the source of the increase in maternal morbidity/mortality and infant perinatal mortality in America.
Jenny Hatch

Mail Online: Another Freebirthing story out of the UK

Yet another paper in the United Kingdom has published a story on Unassisted Birth.
Go here to read all about it.
Laura Shanley has a great montage of Clios birth and life since her Freebirth.
Freebirthing: Is it madness or the ideal way to give birth?
By Natasha Courtenay-Smith
Last updated at 10:50 PM on 28th July 2008
Comments (60)
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Six months pregnant with her second child, Clio Howie logged onto the internet to find out more about labour and delivery.
Until then, she had imagined her baby would arrive in the same predictable and clinical manner as her first child Orion, now four – the same way as most babies born in this country: in the labour ward at the local hospital.
‘It wasn’t even as if I had a particular problem or issue with that sort of delivery,’ says Clio, a housewife who lives in Pembrokeshire with her partner Lee, 28, a farmer.

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