On birthing - part 1

I recently read a blog post by Janet Fraser where she asked for donations to help fund a legal battle she’s involved in. There is an ongoing coroner’s inquest into the death of her baby so it’s hard to comment on what still has a large number of unknown facts. Briefly, the allegations are that around late 2008, Janet Fraser became pregnant with her third child and decided that her child would be birthed at home without the involvement of any medical or nursing staff. There were apparently no medical antenatal checks during her pregnancy. In March 2009, she went into labour and as she and her partner had planned, they prepared for the birth of their child in their home. At the end of the labour, she delivered a full-term baby that was dead. Resuscitation attempts were made by the child’s father, and then an ambulance was called to take the child to hospital. The baby was not able to be resuscitated. Janet Fraser is not on trial for murder of a child; she is involved in a legal fight to establish her (and, as she claims, all “women’s”) rights to be able to opt to give birth at home, unassisted by medical staff.

Janet Fraser has delivered 3 children, the first of which was born in hospital. In 2003, Ms. Fraser was admitted to hospital for delivery of her first child. The whole interaction of this visit was experienced as a very negative, indeed “traumatic”, experience for her. The physical (aka vaginal) examination was unpleasant, the medical and nursing staff made medical and nursing decisions (apparently for and about her and not in conjunction with her), and her right to a vaginal delivery was denied. A caesarean section was performed for delivery of this child, as deemed medically necessary for either mother and/or child. Ms. Fraser felt that this “medical need” should have been no reason to overlook her right to make health care decisions (i.e. whether to have surgery or not), and a result of this she felt personally violated by the hospital system when the caesarean section was performed on her. This hospital birthing experience came to be interpreted by her as akin to rape. She never wanted to experience this ever again.

For delivery of her second child in 2006, Ms. Fraser wanted to avoid all possibility of having a caesarean section performed upon her (presumably against her will) and so decided to deliver this child at home. She eventually went into labour and this lasted 50 hours. After the birth of the child, she suffered a severe haemorrhage and was taken to hospital. Upon admission to hospital, she reported to hospital staff that she had only being in labour 3 hours so as to avoid potential reporting to policing authorities for child neglect or abuse (from willingly submitting the child to a prolonged labour). I wonder if she herself considered that this whole thing could be called child neglect or abuse had the possibility of prosecution not been raised…

Delivery of her third child in 2009 was attempted in the same way that of the second child was, at home. I guess Ms. Fraser considered that the risk of having another difficult birth after 2 previously difficult births did not warrant the greater medical care that may be offered in hospital. Everyone takes risks in life, right? There is always the chance that mum and/or baby could die during birth, regardless of where it takes place. There was always also the chance that Ms. Fraser could have delivered her third child healthily and so smoothly at her home that none of us would ever have heard of her. She must have weighed up those possibilities, the consequences of their potential outcomes, and then made the decision to deliver her child at home. The outcome was a dead baby; the consequence is that that outcome is final.