In the 1970s, in what the gynaecologist Wendy Savage called “the biggest unevaluated medical experiment in the world”, more than 80% of births took place in hospital, with procedures such as artificial induction of labour commonplace.
The activist Beverley Lawrence Beech, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 78, was vehemently opposed to the medicalisation of birth, and especially to the disregard of women’s rights and the demonising of home births. For 40 years, as chair of the campaigning group Aims (Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services), Beech was a forceful voice, exposing damaging practices and unethical behaviour, and helping bring about a paradigm shift in maternity care.
