Yet another piece on how birth has been hijacked by one or other of the cults that surround how women should live their lives (‘Women feel like failures if they haven’t had a “normal” birth’: how the NCT has shaped childbirth in the UK, 27 August).
A good and trouble-free pregnancy is no indication that birth will follow the same pattern. When it comes to squeezing a fully-formed human being through a narrow tunnel, things can go wrong very quickly. When that happens, we need professionals around who ensure that mother and baby are as OK as possible in the circumstances. There is no room for a stubborn, idealistic response when intervention is the only way to save the day. Birth is messy and painful, and it is cruel to make women believe that they have failed if they need help to deal with this.
