The Current - Why some women are choosing to “freebirth”

Episode Date: April 22, 2026

Mistrust in the medical system and barriers to access maternity care in rural communities has some women turning to ‘freebirth’ — giving birth without the support of doctors and registered midwives. On Vancouver Island, a court case is highlighting a divide in the birthing community after a freebirth activist was accused of manslaughter in the death of a newborn in a home birth she allegedly attended.

What's the last book you read that you absolutely loved? If you're anything like me, you could probably talk about it for hours. You might be wondering what went into the story or why the author made the choices they did. And on my podcast bookends, I can help you find those answers. Every week, I sit down with authors to get the inside scoop behind your favorite books, like how Louise Penny got through five years of writer's block, or how R.F. Kwong feels about Taylor Swift. Check out bookends with Mateo Roach, wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast.

On Vancouver Island, a court case is highlighting a divide in the birthing community. Gloria LeMay is accused of manslaughter in the death of a newborn in 2024 after a home birth that she allegedly attended. The childbirth activist is prohibited by a court order to provide care as a midwife. The college that regulates midwifery has called her, in their words, a societal menace. And yet, some consider her a folk hero for protecting the rights of women who want choice in where and how they birth. The current's Enza Uda traveled to Vancouver Island to understand why a growing number of women are choosing to have babies at home and outside of the medical system. Here's Enza's documentary, A Good Birth. Turn right onto Medawood Way.

It's an overcast day in March, and I'm traveling with my personal. producer to Qualcomm Beach. I think we have to turn up. It's a tiny town on the southeast coast of Vancouver Island. All right, we've just kind of come up a mountain. There's a bit of snow up here. As you drive up the mountain, the houses start to spread out. Your destination will be on the right.

It's raining as we turn on to a long gravel driveway. A woman in her 30s dressed casually in stretchy black pants and a cardigan welcomes us at the door. Hi. Hi, Sarah. Thank you. How are you? She gives us a bit of a tour of their home. So the baby's sleeping down the hall.

There's a big backyard. So you have chickens, what else? And ducks. Yeah, chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, fish. Amazing. Children. They're the worst. Out of all of them.

It's her children we're here to talk about. I am Sarah Esiombre. I'm a mother of three wonderful children, two boys and a girl. My husband and I have a couple businesses. We live life really unconventionally. The kids are homeschooled. The boys who are six and three are at the neighbors. Her 18-month-old daughter is down for a nap.

In my first pregnancy, I didn't really have the values that I have today. I was in my late 20s, and I didn't really know anything about what I really believed in. The doctors told her that first pregnancy was high risk because she had gestational diabetes. When you're going through something, something like that, you don't really know that you have a choice and you feel pressure even if there is none because you take on the ideas of other people like a sponge.

Over the next several months, her physician tested her blood sugar and did the extra monitoring to track her baby's growth. They told me that my baby was measuring over 10 pounds on the ultrasounds and they didn't want me to keep going in the pregnancy. So at 39 weeks, she was induced in the hospital. And at one point, a nurse came in and said, the anesthesiologist is about to leave for four to five hours. And if you think you're going to want an epidural, you need to make a decision to get it now or to wait. She got the epidural, and after 24 hours, they told her the baby was stuck. He wasn't moving and I wasn't dilating anymore. And so it was time to do a C-section. And that was really traumatic. They

made the decision with me, I guess. I was there, but I didn't feel really like I had a choice. Her healthy baby boy was born. She says he was just seven pounds. The female OB that cut me open came in my room and she looked at me and said, you're never going to give natural birth. Your baby was only seven pounds and he got stuck and if a baby as small as him wasn't able to be able to to come through your body, then you're not ever going to be able to do it. You should save yourself the grief next time and just schedule a caesarian. That advice didn't sit well, and when the next time came around, she still wanted to try a vaginal birth. One of the risks after a cesarian is a uterine rupture, a rare but serious complication. Her midwife sent her to an obstetrician. And he basically

laughed at me. He was totally condescending and said, by your chart, you should just schedule your caesarian now and skip the trouble. And I left bawling my face off, feeling absolutely terrible about that. And it just kind of still never sat well with me. So she went online. I used to leave every single one of my prenatal appointments feeling frustrated. There, she found countless influencers and podcasters creating content about pregnancy and birth. How would that feel for you if you didn't have any pressure at the end of your pregnancy during your birth? And lots of videos of women birthing at home on beds in baths and inflatable pools. There it is.

Good. She hired a doula for support, signed a waiver with her midwife that she accepted the risks and had her vaginal birth in hospital. I was proud, empowered, and just full of, you know, life and love. and just feeling like I could take on the world after that. So when she got pregnant the third time, she knew right away she didn't want to go back to the hospital. She felt misled by a medical system that told her

she would never be able to have a natural birth. I know so many women who free birth touch this incredible power within. Once again, she turned to the internet for guidance. I found a lot of Instagram accounts about women who really just believe in natural physiological birth, doing it themselves, doing it outside of the system. It's called free birth, women who give birth without the support of medical doctors or registered midwives. What is it about free birthing that appealed to you? Being in control of myself and not feeling pressure or ideologies of anyone else. Birth is treated more like a medical event

then it is a journey. And that's absolutely where we've gone wrong in society, I believe. She was determined to have her baby at home. If you want to just lie down for me, that would be great. Amanda Emsley is a registered midwife in Animo, BC. Loud and proud. Brianna is 38 weeks pregnant. That beautiful acceleration.

That's a sign of a healthy baby. The office is cozy with couches and lit can. Now, we were going to be attempting a nice vaginal delivery after a previous cesarian, correct? Where you almost made it. The walls are decorated with cards and gifts from clients. Oh, that's a local potter. She makes uteruses that... Amanda's pointing to a small ceramic vase.

This, like, ovary up here looks kind of like a middle finger. I think for her, it's just kind of like hands off my body is what that means for. Amanda serves Nanaimo, but also the surrounding rural area. She says expectations around childbirth have changed a lot since COVID. Then we just started to see, I'd say, a real division between folks that were making choices that were very different than what we'd seen in the past. So a lot more declining of things. I think the general psychology of it comes from something like COVID, okay, and an idea that the institution may push something on me. And that I'm going to be in a vulnerable state.

And the thing I care the most about my little one is good. going to be at the mercy of somebody else's decision-making, like whether something's safe or not. Like vaccines, right? Come on in. Thank you for coming, Kelly Bisey is carrying her daughter Nova in a car seat. Right. They're here for a postpartum checkup. They've come in from Arrington, a rural community north of Nanaimo.

Nova is her third baby. The room is a little chilly, and she's not loving getting undressed to be weighed. Let's get you back to where you want to be. She settles when Kelly parks on the couch and starts breastfeeding. And the stories of her births just tumble out. I felt very lost with my first, and it was a really difficult journey. With her first son, she ended up at the hospital after 24 hours laboring at home. And then it just felt like it wasn't in.

my hands anymore. I was strapped down. I had all of these monitors attached to me. I had so many different things that just tied me to the bed and then I lost use of my body, essentially, with the epidural. It became clear the cord was wrapped around his neck. She had to have a cesarean. I do believe that we needed it in that moment. We needed that emergent care in that moment. But Kelly was grateful for the medical help, but couldn't help feeling disappointed. With baby number two, she wanted to do things differently. And I did consider free birthing. I considered doing it at home.

And I was preparing myself to do it at home. I had the birth pool. I was ready to go. But at 42 weeks, she wasn't going into labor. My body was not ready because my body knew that I was not being held. I did not have the safety of somebody who believed in me within the medical system. Once again, she ended up having a cesarian in the hospital. We caved to the pressures of the medical system,

and we went in for a caesarian without having had even a slight chance to spontaneously labor. Fast forward to baby number three, Nova. Yeah, I'm talking about it. about you. Kelly lives 45 minutes away from the hospital. A home birth at my house, I knew was pushing the risk factor a little bit too high for me. But this time she was working with a midwife, Amanda, and Dulas. One of them offered up her house for labor. It was near the hospital if she needed it, but she didn't. And that's where she ended up having Nova. I had a moment of, are we okay? Are we okay here? And then

a breath. And she took a breath and she cried. And it was like, we're okay. And holy, wow, we did that. I did that. I did that after. Kelly had help. But she has friends in her community who have chosen to free birth without any medical interventions.

They had spectacular births that really like inspired, inspired our community. And we were very blessed to have them out there. What's the last book you read that you absolutely loved? If you're anything like me, you could probably talk about it for hours. You might be wondering what went into the story or why the author made the choices they did. And on my podcast bookends, I can help you find those answers. Every week, I sit down with authors to get the inside scoop behind your favorite books, like how Louise Penny got through five years of writer's block,

or how RF Kwong feels about Taylor Swift. Check out bookends with Mateo Roach, wherever you get your podcasts. I wouldn't condone that kind of decision. Dr. Shiraz Mullah is a professor of obstetrics at the University of British Columbia. As I've told folks who've planned unassisted home deliveries and ended up with catastrophes, you know, it's like me trying to land an airplane by reading about it, right? I'll get on the ground, but I'm not going to get on the ground in one piece. He's an obstetrician in Nelson, BC.

It's a part of the province with good access to maternity care. Still, some women in the community are choosing free birth. And it's obviously a deeply personal experience for many people. Thankfully, it's generally a healthy experience for many people, but we do forget, certainly around the world, it's probably up there with the leading causes of death in child-aged women are complications of childbirth, certainly for newborns,

being born is, one argue, the most dangerous day of your life occasionally. And yet, Amanda Emsley, the registered midwife, says many of her clients are increasingly declining medical intervention like prenatal tests and fetal monitoring. There's opposition when they come in the door, right off the bat. What are they telling you about what they're afraid of? They would be afraid of injections that could have preservatives and things in it that could be harmful for their babies' neurodivism. development. The shots she's referring to are vitamin K injections for newborns. There is no evidence

that they cause any harm to the baby. They would be afraid of monitoring systems that could stall their labor. They could be afraid of not getting consent when things are being done. How do I personally manage those fears? I manage those fears by listening to them first. I don't get oppositional at all. There's usually a reason people have a fear. They don't just conjure it out of nowhere. So if we can not gaslight them, believe them, and listen to them, and then we move forward. And then if you've built that trust, Matt, like you just, it just works out. Like, they just go, okay, this person's actually hearing me. And I'm not going to have to fight for what I need.

Amanda worries about the women she can't reach or have had to turn away because she didn't feel safe with their choices. For example, she doesn't feel comfortable attending a birth of twins at home. She says it's just too risky. We've had loss in our community. And the problem with it is that they're given information that something is safe and normal when potentially it's not, you know, or it requires more knowledge, like breach at home, for example. A breach is when the baby's head is up and their bottom or feet are pointing down. Okay, well, you better have a very experienced midwife sat there that have just done a lot of breaches. And even then, that seems like a risk I would be unwilling to take.

She says harm has been done, but she can't share specifics to protect people's privacy in a small town. Are folks asking for things that potentially could be risky? Yes, all the time. Yes. But that is for them to determine not for me. I can't assume any cultural rightness in that. I have the authority of the research and my degree in midwifery, but they have the authority of how they answer questions like life and death, and I can't choose that for them. And thank goodness I have knocking on wood, you know, haven't been witness to anything that wasn't fixable. The BC College of Nurses and Midwives is currently investigating 20 birth attendance. They are not licensed to provide midwifery care, but offer up services to pregnant women, including assisting with the birth. The most well-known among them is Gloria LeMay on Vancouver.

Kouver Island. She's currently facing charges in the death of an infant who, according to court documents, died after a breach birth at home. Allegations have yet to be proven in court. At a request, the BC coroner is reviewing their files to track the number of deaths associated with free birthing in the province. But so far, it hasn't provided a number. But in Ontario, the coroner noted an increase in deaths reported in recent years. Between 2020 and 2024, it documented 11 stillbirths and the death of a mother, all during births without a medical professional attending. That's up from just one in the five years before that. We're hearing about more free births. Do we know the scope of the problem? No, because there's no real data to be able to tell us how big a problem this is.

Lynn Murphy Calbeck is the National President of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada. She's been an obstetrician for over two decades. I'm not needed for probably 90% of deliveries, right? You go in, you catch the baby, it's good. But for that 10% or, you know, when interventions needed, it can go very, very wrong. And it can go wrong very, very quickly. Childbirth sometimes is profoundly dangerous. Dr. Shiraz Mula is the obstetrician in Nelson. At term, there's about almost a half a literer of blood coursing through the uterus every minute. You can lose half your blood volume within minutes if you're having life-threatening bleeding.

Thankfully, these are far and few between, but they're tragic. And we certainly have seen newborns pass away at home, arrive dead as a stillbirth inside the mom, who's still pregnant. He thinks back to his experiences in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Seeing the consequences where women, unfortunately, could not access care, right? They didn't have ambulance systems to bring them to hospital. They didn't have the means to get to hospital. And those are obviously, you know, seared in my mind in terms of what lack of access. And I think certainly for many of my colleagues, someone willingly choosing to not access care

is very much a disconnect that they find very difficult to accept. Difficult to accept, but Dr. Lynn Murphy callback says it is crucial to understand. We hold responsibility to say, okay, how do we make this work? How do we make women, you know, feel comfortable? And she fears many women are finding misinformation online. They can say whatever they want, and there's no checks and balances. But building trust in the medical system is a challenge, she says, when maternity care across the board is under immense strain. There are units across BC that are closing, opening.

Women are being transferred, how far to be able to give birth with a medical provider. That's not a system that's going to instill the most confidence that these women are going to be cared for where and in the way they need and want. That's certainly part of the story for some of the women I spoke to. Like Jacqueline Newfeld, who lives in Northern, Being in my own home, being into my own bed. She free birthed four of her seven children. I'm with my own bacteria.

I'm not in someone else's hospital with sick people. She says women in her area travel two and a half hours to see a midwife. And they pay out of pocket to stay in the city around their due date. I have a blood sugar monitor. So I do a lot of my own kind of prenatal care track my weeks and measuring. She doesn't see a doctor unless she really has to. really just treasure and value the home birth experience. Free birthing went smoothly for her, but that's not always the case.

Dr. Mula, the obstetrician in Nelson, B.C., says every year they see fewer than half a dozen women come in with complications following a free birth. But when these women arrive, they're oftentimes very unwell, or their newborn may be unwell, and there's tremendous amount of resources that we have to bring to bear unexpectedly. I mean, that's our job. Like, the hospital is set up to deal with emergencies. They never know what's going to roll in. We may not have all the information we have

because the patient may not have attended prenatal care or had ultrasounds in the pregnancy. He remembers a time when his colleagues delivered twins unexpectedly because they didn't know there was a second fetus. Thankfully, we're very, very far removed from bad outcomes in maternity care in Canada. Mothers rarely die. Babies rarely die.

He says maternity care provides. are always wondering whether there is something more they can do. Is there something I could have said or would have said or might have said that might have changed this woman's mind about coming in from the cold and delivering in our hospital? Amanda Emsley, the registered midwife, would like to see birth centers attached to hospitals, just so there's medical support close by.

In the meantime, she's working with a local hospital on how to incorporate birth pools into the maternity ward. A lot of people speak fearfully, but I think the younger generations are actually better at talking about their needs and their wants, and we may come to a place where we're even better at this. One of those people is Sarah Esiambre. She's the woman who was so determined to have her baby at home. Hello.

You're a good seat? Paisley, her youngest, wakes up just in time to hear the story of her birth. She was born pretty much right where I'm sitting. Sarah says she would have free birth if she hadn't found Amanda. She even had plans to park the camper near the hospital and do it there. Instead, she stayed home and called Amanda at 3 a.m. after laboring all day and into the night. By this point, I had gone completely within myself. And so Sarah's home birth was captured on home video.

That's it, that's it. Hard, strong, that's it. Push, push down, push down. At one point, Amanda sensed distress from the baby. They had to get her out, and she started talking about a transfer to hospital. And I did not want that. I did not want that at all. And it was right. Amanda puts her hand in to help the baby get past a cervical lip that was stopping her from coming out. Push, push, push, push, push. You're getting ready to me? Welcome to the one. You feel like you've just touched the sky or you're holding the stars. And you get to just transition right into it in your own home in your own space. You don't have to put a new baby in a car seat or have them

poked and prodded and pulled away from you or you just get to soak up all of the magic in a totally different way. That documentary, a good birth, was produced by the current's Enza Uda and Liz Hoth at the CBC audio documentary unit. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.