Against a culture of 'medicalised' procedures, the Home Birth Association of Ireland is set to explore 'joyful birth' at its conference this weekend, writes SYLVIA THOMPSON
THERE HAS always been a group of women who – empowered by natural childbirth – want to spread the word to other mothers and mothers to be.
Their central message is that although labour is painful (excruciatingly so, for some), the experience of giving birth can be exhilarating and the process of labour and childbirth should be left to run its course rather than “medicalised” and controlled by maternity hospital procedures and time constraints.
Homebirthers are usually the most ardent campaigners for natural childbirth, so it’s interesting that at its annual conference this weekend, the Home Birth Association is opening up its discussion to “joyful birth”, whether at home or in a hospital.
“We plan to have live interviews with women who have had positive experiences of birth by Caesarean section, vaginal birth in hospital and a homebirth,” explains Krysia Lynch, co-ordinator of the Home Birth Association and spokeswoman for the Association for the Improvement in Maternity Services (Aims).
Lynch acknowledges that most women in Ireland want to have their babies in a maternity hospital. She also acknowledges that the pain-free birth is the preferred option for many mothers. However, she believes that this is because the culture of medicalised birth is so dominant in this country.
“Birth is portrayed in our culture as something that is best handled in large obstetric-led maternity hospitals with a lot of technology, so that women don’t have to feel any pain or go through the process of childbirth at all, but there is a minority group that is shaking off the belief that childbirth is unpleasant and something that has to be got through as quickly as possible,” says Lynch.
At the conference on Saturday, representatives from Cuidiú – the Irish Childbirth Trust (ICT), Aims, La Leche League and the Doula Association of Ireland (a support service for women during pregnancy, childbirth and post-natal period) will discuss ways to have a joyful birth.
Recent developments in midwifery-led care in Ireland is also giving women in some areas a choice to have their babies outside the obstetric-led maternity units. And domino schemes (where women can have a home or hospital birth under the supervision of a midwife), such as the one in the National Maternity Hospital, are booked out well in advance.
The recent debate about the increase in Caesarean births in Ireland has also highlighted issues around how hospital births are managed. Research has shown that women caught up in the so-called spiral of intervention – induction, epidural, synthetic hormones to speed up labour – are more likely to have a Caesarean birth.
Niamh Healy, an ante-natal teacher with Cuidiú says the way to cut Caesarean rates is to look at more low-tech solutions and to get more midwives in there.
“Conceiving your baby for most people is not a high-tech activity, birthing your baby shouldn’t be either. If we supported women, they would have a more enjoyable experience, which is a better start to motherhood,” she says.
The Home Birth Association says that changes to the insurance schemes available to midwives working in the community has also made homebirth more possible for women now. “One key factor is that since last year, self-employed community midwives are insured by the State’s clinical indemnity scheme and in areas where these midwives work, the HSE will fund homebirths,” explains Lynch.
The collaboration between hospitals and these community-based midwives has also improved in some areas. “Women living in Ireland do not have bodies any different from those living in Britain, yet in England women have choices, such as using a birthing centre, having their baby at home or having a water birth,” says Lynch.
Tracey Donegan, founder of Doula Ireland and author of The Better Birth Book(Liffey Press), believes that the current overload on maternity hospitals together with financial cutbacks will help to shift maternity services towards more collaboration between consultants and midwives and midwife-led care.
“Studies have found that women have less intervention in childbirth with midwife-led care. There are fewer episiotomies, less use of analgesics and mothers are more likely to breastfeed when they have one-to-one support of a midwife that they know,” she says.
“It’s going to come down to what makes sense for healthcare budgets, and policymakers are already aware that midwife-led units are cheaper than obstetric units.
“Seventy to 80 per cent of women would have straight- forward, normal vaginal births with the support, time and space to do so. The problem is that we’re short of all of that in the current system,” she adds.
** The Joy of Birth, the 26th annual conference of the Home Birth Association of Ireland, will be held in the Hilton Hotel, Charlemont, Dublin 2, on Saturday. A screening of the film, The Business of Being Born, takes place on Thursday at 7.30pm in the UCI multiplex, Coolock, Dublin. Bookings for both events on tel: 087-7533303
Ricki to deliver keynote speech
American actor and television personality, Ricki Lake, is the keynote speaker at the Joy of Birth conference on Saturday. Lake is a campaigner for choice in childbirth.
Her second son was born at home in 2001 and the 2008 documentary she produced, The Business of Being Born, includes footage and details of this "life-changing" home birth.
Dubbed the “Inconvenient Truth About Childbirth”, the film draws sharp attention to the high-tech, obstetrician-led model that predominates in the US.