„Freie Geburten“ in Irland: Innerhalb von drei Stunden starb Naomi (38) und hinterließ vier Kinder
https://www.irishtimes.com/health/2026/06/06/free-births-in-ireland-concern-grows-for-women-choosing-births-without-medical-help/
Von JackmanH420
„Freie Geburten“ in Irland: Innerhalb von drei Stunden starb Naomi (38) und hinterließ vier Kinder
https://www.irishtimes.com/health/2026/06/06/free-births-in-ireland-concern-grows-for-women-choosing-births-without-medical-help/
Von JackmanH420
38 Kommentare
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Really tragic, there is so much misinformation now. People are mislead down dangerous paths, be it free birth, anti vax, or the rampant political misinformation just to name a few.
Regulations at a global level are needed to deal with this scale of misinformation distribution the internet has facilitated.
I am all free speech, so I don’t know what can be done to balance truth and freedom, but these algorithms are warping people perspectives.
People can thank modern medical practices for making death in pregnancy and labour an outlier event these days. Pregnancy has been a killer of women for millenia. This ridiculous notion that women are „designed“ to give birth is infuriating.
These free birth „influencers“ should face some consequences for impacting vulnerable women.
Those poor kids and her significant other.
This makes the Irish Birth Movement look very bad, like if they were limited to just campaigning for increased access to home birth services it’d be more reasonable but endorsing extremely dangerous free births is just irresponsible.
Plus all the misinformation
> A book written, edited and self-published in 2024 by the IBM, called Giving Birth in Ireland, includes a number of claims and criticisms about giving birth in a hospital.
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> An introductory chapter by Healy, Huschke and Brosnan claims, without providing evidence, that having a Cesarean section means “you will not be able to pick your baby up after birth”.
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> Dr Geraldine Connolly, a former consultant obstetrician at the Rotunda, says this claim is “untrue”.
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> “I had two C-sections and managed many women who had C-sections,” she says.
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> The same chapter also suggests women who avail of pain relief are “not fully present” during the birth of their baby.
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> Connolly says this is a “sweeping, opinion-based statement”
This entire scenario was so sad I’m so avoidable. And it’s important to lay some blame at the door of online forums, where Doulas, anti-VAX, tree hugging and homeschooling women actively encourage these extremely high risk women to take high risk actions. This story is the result.
Where are all of those supporters now? Where is the Doula that was with her that night, with zero obstetric or midwifery skills. Are they stepping in to mother the babies that were left behind? These women are so concerned with their “ experience” and “rights” that they have let it cloud their judgement to epically dangerous proportions.
At least 60% of the mother I know personally required emergency medical intervention. If any of those women had been caught up in the free birth bollox every one of them would be dead and in all likelihood their babies would be too. These free birth idiots need to be cut apart.
It’s amazing to me that this sort of stuff gains popularity. Giving birth as never been safer and Ireland has some of the best stats on the planet. And it’s all free!
Having kids is a scary stressful time. Too many people are trying to take advantage of that.
Women have been giving births outside of hospitals for millenia“
* *ignores mortality statistics * *
Yes I can see why home births and the rest are attractive, especially when you are experienced in giving birth and have a midwife with you, but unfortunately things go wrong all the time, and get extremely bad extremely fast which is why you need to be in a hospital with all the required equipment and skills for emergency.
She also had c-sections prior. There are two-directional arguments about these, ranging from them being incorrectly overused by hospitals and people „too posh to push“ to people refusing them when they are really needed for various reasons including lack of trust in the healthcare system and wanting only a natural birth. I am not qualified to dicuss these issues but am recognising it a serious issue for our society to address.
The woman in the article had 2 s-sections before and I understand it’s more risky for someone with a prior c section to have a natural birth. It also indicates that she may be prone to having difficult births also.
There are also real studies on alternative – usually traditional- positions to give birth which public health hospitals in the West often do not permit,bsuch as holding onto a rope. I therefore see how movements like freebirth are popular
Thankfully the baby survived.
I am not imposing opinions here in my post, just open discussions. I am a man and would never be in such a situation first hand and recognise that, I have every limited experience around people giving birth and I’m not medically trained. I think childbirth is an important issue and having an open discussion.
Multiple women I know have had a post-partum haemorrhage which was dealt with by medical staff and treated appropriately. One of these home births would have likely proven fatal to them. It’s mad stuff. Anti-medical bullshit is a menace.
I remember doulas were a big thing on Irish twitter 5-6 years ago. Advertising their services like mad, completely against all ethical guidelines of course. There was a huge whiff of alternative medicine around it from the very start and I was amazed that the HSE issued official guidance on it and „brought them into the fold“ as it were.
Modern medicine isn’t some evil thing. One of the great success stories across the world is how in relatively short term we’ve increased the numbers of both women and babies surviving pregnancy. Lives saved purely by bringing childbirth into hospitals.
I gave birth three times and I can’t imagine doing it this free birth thing way. I’d go mad with fear. My husband would go mad with fear. He was shitting himself every time when I was giving birth and he’d always say the helplessness a father feels at that moment is a horrible feeling. And mind you that was in a hospital setting. Doctors, nurses, meds, all that and he still recalls it as the scariest moments in his life. Can’t imagine if it was free birth or home birth or whatever
Also to choose such a dangerous path when I can go a much safer one is like a slap in the face to all the women who died giving birth through out history before we had the medicine and healthcare we have now
It’s like vaccines have worked so well people lost their fear of dying from preventable causes .. it seems this is happening in other areas of healthcare.
I think it should be illegal for people to give false health information about medical stuff. There needs to consequences.
I absolutely do not endorse free birthing. But I can understand after having two kids (one emergency C, one VBAC) why many women distrust the hospital. You are really made feel like a number and your anxiety and fear is ignored or treated with disgust.
With my first I had planned a home birth supported by a midwife. It was a trained professional with the HSE to be clear, not a „doula“. I met with her several times and she had strict conditions – there were to be two midwives present, I had to attend all scans and health checkups and there were to be no underlying complications, I had to live within a certain distance of the hospital. She had a caring but no nonsense approach and would be sending me in early if anything happened. These are the types of services which should be more available to women, this was pre-covid and it was only available in certain areas so I’m not sure if this service is gone now.
In the end I didn’t end up needing the midwife service my baby came very early all of a sudden. I was very grateful to the hospital and my kid is doing great.
For my second I tore and I required stitches. I was very anxious about it and the good feeling had worn off as they hadn’t noticed for hours later. I spoke to the doctor and told her I had a history of SA and was very anxious about the stitching. She reassured me and gave me a shot of painkiller – then she started stitching in the same sentence she gave the painkiller, it was in no way working at all and she just asked another nurse to hold me down and ignored my screaming.
I’ve read so many stories of people going in for a „check up“ and a sweep is performed without their consent. This is assault. I know women that have been slapped by nurses for moaning in pain during labour.
Free birth (at home, without a midwife, without checks during pregnancy) is absolutely fatally dangerous and stupid. But we need to see it as a symptom of distrust towards the medical community and see what can be done to change that or to promote compromises like the home birth midwife support above. Doctors may treat pregnant mothers like the 100 person they’ve seen today but they are really lacking the empathy of what it feels like to go through it for the first time and be treated that way.
All throughout history the biggest killer of women has been childbirth. We live in the 21st century, where having a baby remains probably one of the most dangerous things a woman can be exposed to, but we have medical care that makes it routine. And along come these eejits who suddenly want to have wild pregnancies and do free birth for….. reasons.
Absolute self centered clowns, leaving behind a young family in this case.
I get it, sometimes the medical system can be jarring. But it’s life and fucking death.
My SIL is a hotel manager and once ended up assisting a birth in a hotel bathroom because a woman refused to have a section like the docs wanted, so booked into a hotel instead while in labour, because she had 3/4 other kids at home.
They heard screaming from the room and when they went in, she was pushing in the bathroom.
Luckily, everything was fine and the baby was born healthy, but what if that had gone wrong? What a selfish act. Could have fucked up so many people’s lives.
Granted I haven’t read everything on this but from what I have, the reporting on this seems to leave out that even if we had access to everything the home birth movement desired in Ireland, this poor woman was far too high risk to ever be a candidate.
If you ever wondered how the human population of earth has doubled in the last few centuries one of the big reasons is hospital births under doctor supervision. Before that infant and mother mortality was depressingly high.
Its not a „free birth“ its a reckless birth. Iv seem children with brain MRIs that look like a bomb went off in their brain as they were stuck in the canal deprived of oxygen while mum and dad are in a taxi to the hospital.
These parents should be charged for child abuse.
They had an episode about this on the Pitt in S2. Both mother and baby survived but she was against any medical intervention let alone even visiting a doctor for prenatal checks because women had been doing it alone for 100s of years. And dying at a steady rate too but she didn’t want to hear that part.
Does anyone have a link to the article without having to pay please?
This case is absolutely heart breaking. I am a member of the VBAC Ireland group and I remember seeing this woman post there and being actively encouraged to free birth by so called health professionals on that page. They should be held accountable
My mother tried to give birth at home, it just wouldn’t happen. My father basically had to force her to go to a hospital, where I was born with few complications, but this was still two full days and change of labour. Today (23) I have a bunch of neurological issues that can be connected to lacking oxygen at birth, so yeah
I want to put in my two-cents by saying an awful lot of doulas and home birth midwives will agree beforehand that it is done within close proximity to a hospital and will call for hospital intervention if they feel anything concerning is happening. If anyone is looking for a doula or home birth midwife, there are options for those who work in conjunction with medical professionals and not against.
I am sorry this was not the case for this person.
Millions of women around the world have no access to maternity care, and they and their babies die because of it. Meanwhile in the west, we have people so far removed from the past and so privileged to be ignorant of it, that they forgo medical care because they think they know best. Imagine telling a woman in South Sudan that there are women who get this care for free and say nah.
I’m sorry this woman didn’t ike her c-sections but I don’t agree with her that they were unnecessary. C-sections are often required for twins like she had, and obesity often increases the need for one too. (This isn’t a personal dig, I’ve a bit to shed myself) I understand why so many women don’t want c-sections but they are often a medical necessity. The growth of c-sections as a percentage is largely down to rising maternal age and increased obesity.
Free birthers push free birth as ’natural‘, but we have forgotten that natural doesn’t mean good. Death is natural, bleeding out is natural, etc.
Free births could be drastically reduced in Ireland by:
– increasing access to HSE community midwives for homebirths (extremely limited, and in places like the North-West, there are no community midwives)
– Improving maternity care – Ireland has one of the highest labour induction rates in the developed world, with over 38.5% of all births medically induced. In contrast, international induction rates are noticeably lower, ranging between 21% and 33% across most of Western Europe, the UK, and North America. Ireland also has one of the highest C-section rates in the EU.
Inductions and C-sections are **sometimes** medically necessary, but are over-used interventions in Ireland. Induction often leads to a c-section, and birth becomes more medicalised, more difficult and more traumatic. Vaginal births are better for baby where possible.
Instead of demonising women who are afraid of a system that does not give them the care they deserve, we should reform the system.
[https://www.irishtimes.com/podcasts/in-the-news/why-does-ireland-have-such-a-high-caesarean-section-rate/](https://www.irishtimes.com/podcasts/in-the-news/why-does-ireland-have-such-a-high-caesarean-section-rate/)
Tragic. And so sad this woman and her family were so ill informed. Now four children left without a mother.
She was told she couldn’t have a vaginal birth but chose to ignore that advice and avoid any medical support altogether, with fatal consequences.
High confidence, low competence at its worst.
*Three* previous c-sections, and she wanted a vaginal birth??? Wow. Please, in general, listen to professional, qualified, medical advice…
>The Co [Louth](https://www.irishtimes.com/tags/louth/) woman, who ran her own photography business, felt the two previous C-sections were “unnecessary interventions”, her brother Adam Boyle says.
>“If you were to talk to Naomi, she would just tell you: ‘I never felt heard, I never felt listened to’,” Boyle tells The Irish Times.
I can understand this on some level. There was a report about the NHS this week saying one in four births is now C section, partly because hospitals are worried about being blamed if something goes wrong. You’re seeing it here too with the row in the Rotunda because they say they can’t afford indemnity insurance on their own.
But like, if you’ve had two c sections, insisting on a subsequent vaginal birth is just crazy. There’s no debate around the dangers of VBAC.
I’ve had a HSE home birth and it was a great service. I also had a home birth on the NHS in London, and one birth in a Midwife Led Unit. I would choose another home birth if I get pregnant again. Home birth with a midwife (who can administer medication in the case of a bleed) is evidence based and backed by science. It’s not some woowoo bullshit and I don’t think home birthers should be lumped in with anitvaxxers. The vast majority of women I know who birthed in a hospital had many complications, and these complications didn’t just ‚happen‘ for no reason. They were usually the result of a cascade effect – you are coerced into an induction, then you need an epidural to cope with the pain, you subsequently fail to progress, and then you need an emergency section. This is the story I hear time and time again. And then you hear „I would have died giving birth at home“, as if all those complications happened in a vacuum.
If you actively choose to reject modern medicine and then die, it is 100% your own fault. No different to being anti vax
My last child was emergency c section. As I waited to go to the theater, there was a man whose sons girlfriend had had a home birth, there were complications and the baby drowned. Awful awful situation. Everyone has to make their own minds up but giving birth is a complex process and can go wrong at the last minute.
Most women choosing it are ones who been traumatised by our medical system during a previous birth. Join the social media groups about it and nearly all of them give stories of being mistreated.
It’s time we moved with science and allowed women movement during birth and stopped insisting on cutting the cord asap. Both of these are indicated to have benefits especially the movement thing. Giving birth on your back is a pretty bad position and increases risk of tearing.
I personally know women who were held down on the bed during the later parts of labour/birth and it’s traumatized them.
There’s a balance between nature and medicine and we’re just choosing to ignore it. Offer a „free birth“ experience in the hospital and you’ll see the rates drop again as well as the mortality rates (as women can access help faster). Put an upcharge on it if it’s a cost issue. Most other European countries have options like this which we seem to lack. I imagine insurance costs are one of the reasons.
The Guardian in the UK covered an influencer huge following encouraging free births, she trained doulas and trained them to discourage women from wanting medical care.
Yes, we can all be victims of iatrogenic harm (medical harm). There are many influencers who want to capitalise on this, capitalise on anxiety. Think of all the parent „experts“ we now have. For example we’ve many sleep ‚experts‘ here in Ireland with no medical training, they are influencers.
It is tragic that this woman lost her life in childbirth.
It seems that her first preference was vaginal birth in a hospital, but this wasn’t supported by any consultant she met:
>I haven’t had any support from the consultants. They’ve told me [vaginal birth after Caesarean, known as VBAC] won’t be an option.
Even when planning the home birth, it seems she considered that she might need the hospital. She just didn’t want to have a c-section forced on her:
>I’m planning to wait for labour to start and I’ll be labouring at home for as long as possible.
It seems that the most harm-reducing option would have been to let her have or attempt a vaginal birth in a hospital. The birth itself was fine, „Her healthy baby boy came quickly.“ She lost blood afterwards, which would have been much better attended to in a hospital.
Even in a case where a vaginal birth seems higher-risk, surely that person giving birth in a hospital is better than them giving birth at home.
People seem to forget that being pregnant and giving birth is the most dangerous thing a woman can do. Having your baby at home is a fools game, only in a very narrow set of situations is is a good idea, and at that a professional who’s willing to call it and move the mother to the hospital is certainly a prerequisite.
I think i have some understanding of why women are choosing to birth at home.
In my group of friends a lot of us have traumatic births at hospitals. Not feeling listened to. Having medical staff speak in different languages at during the birth when youre feeling scared and haven’t a clue what’s going on.
One of my friends was brought into the delivery room and there was someone’s else’s blood on the floor.
Being stitched when you can feel everything and being told to stop complaining (this happened to me).
You’re at your most vulnerable and you are in a clinical setting where you feel scared and have no control. I dont think any mother sets out to make choices to harm their baby or themselves. Not excusing bad choices but there may have been a reason
Check out the birthing centres we have in many Australian hospitals. Double bed, soft lights, birthing pool, midwives who understand Hypno birthing. The only drug allowed is gas.
Then if you need or want the big guns, you go next door to the labour ward.
https://brisbanekids.com.au/birth-centre-brisbane-natural-childbirth-options/