Relentlessly pushing the idea of ‘natural’ childbirth is an affront to pregnant women | Catherine Bennett

The Ockenden report revealed fatal myths in maternity care. But their potent allure remains

For Grantly Dick-Read, the Victorian originator of the UK's natural childbirth movement, birthing women in Britain should emulate those, as he phrased it, of more primitive types". In Natural Childbirth, 1933, he pictured one of these individuals disappearing into a thicket" - it sounded plausible enough from Woking - to await her pain-free labour.

Natural birth is all that she looks for; there are no fears in her mind; no midwives spoiling the natural process; she has no knowledge of the tragedies of sepsis, infection and haemorrhage."

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