Free Birth Society

There were two journalists who worked for The Guardian.

They did a year-long investigation on a company called Free Birth Society.

And Free Birth Society was founded I think in 2017 by Emily Saldea and I think her business partner is Yolanda Norris-Clark but not as involved or there's… I don't know, it feels like there's a degree of separation there.

But she's still quite involved in it.

And anyway, I'm a big fan of a lot of Yolanda's work.

And then MMI which was like...I can't remember what it stands for... ...but it was like the midwifery program or traditional midwifery program which...

It was not good marketing because it wasn't a midwifery school.

And these two journalists like picked up on Free Birth Society.

Welcome to Season 10 of the Free Birth Society Podcast.

I'm Emily Saldea, your host, and this is where we break the spell of medicalized birth, remember what's been forgotten, and rise together into our birthright to live to birth and to mother as sovereign spiritual women.

Okay, free birthers, listen up.

And one of the ones that this birth worker attended in a quiet place.

popular is the Free Birth Society, which I have kind of followed for a really long time.

They also do a podcast.

And it's interesting because, you know, the ethos is that, you know, women are powerful and they have the innate ability and, you know, all of the things that are correct, like they're thought through.

I read the article which was, yeah, these two women who did a year-long investigation, they wrote an article.

They had interviewed quite a number of women within free birth society who were either doing the courses to become birth keepers or they, for lack of a better term, were drinking the Kool-Aid for their own births and they were either seeing poor outcomes or experienced poor outcomes, generally babies passing or having stillbirths.

And the stories that they shared, it was very, very, like there was a big question mark as to whether had that woman sought medical care somewhere within that very long labour where there was smelly meconium and fevers and, you know, like a lot of red flags.

the outcome may have been different.

And so have, you know, been blessed with that undisturbed experience is kind of one of the popular words.

And then likewise, the midwife, you know, talking with them, they tend to favor the word unassisted birth.

So I didn't even really hear the word free birth until rather recently and then kind of found out like, oh, well, there's this free birth society.

And I've heard of women who haven't given birth, like, oh, like I drool over their courses.

Welcome to Season 10 of the Free Birth Society Podcast.

I'm Emily Saldea, your host, and this is where we break the spell of medicalized birth, remember what's been forgotten, and rise together into our birthright to live to birth and to mother as sovereign spiritual women.

Okay, free birthers, listen up.

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I listened to Free Birth Society throughout the whole production because I was listening to a lot of birth podcasts and I read the article and I...

i fully support free birth i don't want i don't like to call it free birth because it has like this connotation of free birth society i like to call it an assisted birth actually there is an unassisted birth in the film which is christine's um i have attended unassisted births from you know like women that wanted to have an unassisted birth i in my you know in my mind And being super straightforward to them, I asked them, like, why are you wanting to have a free birth? Is it because you want to, say, give the middle finger to the medical system? Or is it because you feel like you want to do it and that's what's safer for you? Or is it because you can afford a home birth midwife? So for the right reasons, I would attend a free birth or an assisted birth.

I don't think it modified the way I was, you know, doing this project or the way I was kind of like following the storyline, if you will.

I do think that it was important to me to... portrayed Christine's unassisted birth in the light in which she actually chose to have it, which is, I wanted to have an unassisted birth because that was right for me, but I wasn't opposed to go to a hospital if it was needed.

She was healthy.

She would never have put her baby at risk just because she wanted to have an unassisted birth.

And I think that there's a lot that is happening around this free birth society culture where they kind of promote that you shouldn't get any kind of care, that a midwife is always going to sabotage your birth, that, you know, they call them rapists and they call the midwives, like, medical midwives or medwives.

Yeah, the Guardian.

The Guardian on Free Birth Society.

Yeah.

So I just, I don't know about you, but I felt like that came out and everyone were real sad.

But they didn't address this series.

The elephant in the room.

Very large elephant in the room and like I kind of understand because I know that there are groups within the free birth Sphere who have never really followed free birth society and do find that some of the writer Rhetoric is quite extreme or they don't agree with all of it.

And so they've just like yeah, okay, whatever I mean, it's probably a lot of crossover that does agree with each other but um, I think that I what happened in the community was kind of like that came out and now free birth is taboo again.

Welcome to season 10 of the Free Birth Society Podcast.

I'm Emily Soldea, your host, and this is where we break the spell of medicalized birth, remember what's been forgotten, and rise together into our birthright to live, to birth, and to mother as sovereign spiritual women.

[upbeat music] Okay, free birthers, listen up.

And, um, and so I asked my friend who I mentioned, Grace, who, who had her daughter at the birth center, to be with me, and my partner at the time, Juan, to be with me.

And they were like, "What do we need to do? What do we need to prepare?" And, and I had, I had just watched a bunch of birth videos.

At that point, after sharing what I wanted to do, a lot of people started saying, "Oh yeah, so you should look, check out Free Birth Society." And so all I would do is go on and look for the image where it's, like, grayed out with the little i crossed out, like, "Don't watch this," if, if it- Oh, oh ...

like, a lot of birth videos- Sensitive ...

they have that filter over the top.

Welcome to season 10 of the Free Birth Society Podcast.

I'm Emily Saldaña, your host, and this is where we break the spell of medicalized birth, remember what's been forgotten, and rise together into our birthright to live, to birth, and to mother as sovereign spiritual women.

[upbeat music] Okay, free birthers, listen up.