Women are being stopped from having a home birth due to a ‘widespread lack of adequate planning and training’ according to a leading pregnancy and birthing charity.
Birthrights, who are campaigning to change government and NHS policy on access to home births, revealed two thirds of trusts “had service suspensions, strict restrictions or frequent interruptions” between October 2023 and November 2024.
Director of Doula UK, Trudi Dawson, who provides support to a pregnant woman before, during and after childbirth, which often involves a home birth, said: “The situation is awful. I just want people to have the choice and be supported in that. It costs the NHS so much less for a home birth than a hospital birth so on economics alone it really doesn’t make sense.”
Ms Dawson, who has been a trained doula for nearly 20 years, believes home births can provide people with more control over their birthing experience.
“We now have decent research to support the fact that, around many parameters, home births are ‘safer’ than hospital births,” she said.
In October 2024, Doula UK reported 2,090 births took place with a doula in the same year, up from 1,835 in 2021.
The organisation was founded in 2001 and now has over 700 registered members.
Ms Dawson believes birth is becoming over-medicalised. “Sadly, it has become a huge part of the entire culture around birth and drives so many crazy decisions,” she said. “I’m not anti-medical. I’m just anti-fear and against fear-based decisions.”
Ms Dawson, who is also an infant feeding specialist, yoga instructor and holistic sleep coach trained to be a doula after watching her niece being safely born at home.
She said: “It changed my life. I saw the positive impact continuous care and trusted support made to the birth experience and I just wanted to give that to everyone birthing. I then found out about doulas and I was sold.
“It’s like being a travel guide for bringing a new baby into the world.”
Doulas are not legally required to have any training, but Doula UK insist their members must complete an approved training courses and a mentoring programme.
“I actually trained twice to be a doula as I enjoyed it so much and just wanted to be the best I could be,” said Ms Dawson. “It then took me about two years to pass through the mentorship.”
The mum-of-three from East Sussex, who also runs her own business, Mothering Mojo, believes medics who think home births are dangerous are “spreading irrational fear” but that sometimes there are grounds for medical support.
“I am saddened when a woman has to choose between a hospital birth and a freebirth [when a birth takes place without any medical professionals, such as midwives, present] because there is no middle option.
“I had a client who had three beautiful home births. At the time her fourth baby was due, they had closed the home birth service in her area. She felt she had no choice but to freebirth, but she would rather have had a midwife there.”
