Why would anyone free-birth?

When it comes to giving birth, Mia Freedman is frustrated by women who treat the medical profession as the enemy. Shouldn't we be more concerned with having a healthy baby than with having our fantasy birth experience?

A few weeks ago, I watched a program about an amazing Australian woman called Dr Catherine Hamlin. She and her husband, both obstetricians and gynaecologists went to Ethiopia in 1958 on a three year contract to work in an Addis Ababa hospital.

They quickly became aware of the plight of thousands of Ethiopian "fistula women". This is a severe gynaecological condition caused by difficult, obstructed childbirth and it's extremely common in third world countries where most women give birth without medical support.

It often results in the baby being stillborn and if that wasn't tragic enough, it leaves the mother with a constant and permanent stream of urine and sometimes faeces running down her legs.

The women suffering from this condition quickly become social outcasts due to the associated smell and stigma. They're forced to live alone and destitute, driven from their villages and families.

In 1961, Dr Hamlin and her husband founded The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital where they began treating the fistula women of Ethiopa with an operation they provided for free.

Today, Dr Hamlin has opened multiple fistula clinics all over Ethiopia and has cured many thousands of women while simultaneously training Ethiopian doctors to perform the operation.

Despite being well into her 80s, she still operates and passionately campaigns for a better understanding of the fistula condition and for more medical facilities to be made available to third world women giving birth.

It's an inspiring, humbling story and one that made me think about some western attitudes to childbirth.

A particular fact jumped out at me while I was watching this program: this fistula condition has not been seen in the western world since the 1920s because of the medical facilities available - medical facilities that can provide vital assistance if things go wrong. Continued...