Why do Birth Rights Matter?

Before I got pregnant with my first daughter, if you had asked me what a "birth right" was, I would have glanced at you with some confused side eye, thought about it for a second and more than likely replied with something as simple as "everyone having the right to give birth if they want to". Pre-kids Lauran wouldn't have been wrong. This would of course fall under the umbrella of "birth rights" but the topic is something so much more complex than I could ever have imagined. If you had told me that 3 years later, my career would be driven by a deep passion for those two words, I would have assumed you had lost your mind.

Did you know that at least 1 in 3 birthers are coming out of the maternity system with some form of Birth Trauma? Since 2019, the NHS is facing record high negligence bills of £27 Billion pounds from maternity failings alone. All of this, during a time where multiple hospital trusts are facing hugely serious accusations for the death or serious life altering conditions of birthers and babies.

Sharing these statistics isn't to create fear. It's to illustrate to you just how important it is to know your legal rights when it comes to child birth. It's to illustrate,that whether we want to accept it or not, we are birthing within a maternity system that is broken to it's very core. Being aware of what your birth rights are, being able to differentiate between maternity care that is based on hospital policy over robust scientific evidence and knowing how to advocate to health care professionals for the right care and the right birth for you, have become essential antenatal educational skills.

There is a statistic floating around the birth world at present, that only 11-13% of maternity care policies are based on robust scientific evidence. That means that up to a whopping 89% of decisions made by health care professionals, are based on hospital policy. Now you might be wondering why this is an issue. Surely, hospital policy is hospital policy for very good reason and in some respects, that line of thinking isn't incorrect. The issue is, is that "very good reason" often has very little to do with benefiting those that are giving birth. Hospital policy is there to benefit and support an already overwhelmed system.

Let's think about an example. There is increasing evidence that tells us, when it comes to well birthers and babies, waiting for the placenta to arrive "naturally" (or a physiological third stage) may actually reduce the risk of a post partum haemorrhage (there is a fab episode of The Great Birth Rebellion on this topic and Rachel Reed also has a really interesting blog post). This delivery could take place almost immediately after birth or hours later. Yet, in almost all trusts (if not every single one), there is a policy that states that a birther should be offered a Syntocinon injection if the placenta has not been delivered within an hour after birth. If this isn't in line with current research, then why is it still hospital policy? Could it have something to do with the understaffed maternity wards needing to move people from the birth room in as little time as possible ready for the next person to give birth? Is it because if the staff weren't seen to be actively managing the placental delivery, and a PPH did happen, the trust could be liable for lord knows how much in compensation? Is it quite simply that NHS trusts don't keep up to speed with the most recent developments in maternity care research? These are all natural questions that may be asked when looking at whether a care option is being offered to you based on it's scientific merit and appropriateness for an individual, or if it is being offered because that's what the hospital policy tells staff is routine procedure, with no thought for what actually might be in the best interests of the birther. To make these kind of decisions even more of a mine field, it is very common that birthing families are informed of the benefits of accepting a particular intervention or care option, but very rarely are they fully informed about the risks or the alternative options available to them.

So how do we overcome this? It is true that the subject of birth rights is overwhelming and has many, many tangents. This post merely scratches the surface (we will look at how to advocate for yourself in a separate post). My best advice to you is to get educated. Choose your antenatal education INCREDIBLY carefully. Whether you decide to do a hypnobirthing, birth preparation course with me or not, make sure that whoever is providing your education is covering this and is covering this properly. It should be top of their priority list. Are they acknowledging the problems within the system and educating you on how to navigate them and advocate for yourself? And don't stop there. Even the best antenatal courses that cover this content well, only have a limited amount of time to cover the topic. For The Outspoken Birth Worker courses and workshops, on top of covering it rigorously during our classes, I sign post clients to the best resources (pod casts, studies, blog posts, books - get familiar with name Sarah Wickham guys) to cover a broad range of topics and get them as fully informed as possible.

Looking for a place to begin this mammoth journey? Listening to some podcast episodes of The Great Birth Rebellion (although Australian, it still converts very well to the UK system) and The Midwive's Cauldron are great starting points.

Then, of course, book a course with The Outspoken Birthworker..... :)

Oh and read anything and everything by Sarah Wickham (all hail). Trust me on this one.