Too Many Women Like Me Are Suffering From Traumatic Births. We Need To Change Maternity Services For Good

Mother in hospital with baby

February 16, 2021 was meant to be the day that I birthed my newborn son – without drugs, not even gas and air! – into a birthing pool, under the glow of lavender-coloured LED lights, as the sound of ‘cicadas in a field’ gently filled the my private room at the midwife-led birthing unit of my local hospital.

Ideally, this would have been with the aide of a birthing Doula, but as we were deep into another nationwide lockdown, I was lucky to even have my (masked) husband as my birthing partner.