The Green Party’s stance on childbirth isn’t just tone-deaf – it’s dangerous

On a now-deleted page of its website, the party describes childbirth as a ‘normal and non-medical event’ – but I wonder if they’d still hold that view if they were there to witness my own traumatic pregnancy, writes Harriet Toner

A senior party official has since said that the policy – which in its most basic form was an aim to reduce the number of medical interventions in childbirth – has been scrapped (Getty )

Reading the Green Party’s childbirth policy – which has been speedily whipped down from its website, so in order to read it you’ll have to find a screenshot on Twitter – you’d be forgiven for thinking they had never met or conversed with an actual human woman.

This is surely the only reasonable explanation for the party’s policy on so-called “natural birth”, which describes childbirth as a “normal and non-medical event” – words a woman who has been through such an event would never utter. I’ve experienced many “normal, non-medical” events in my life – grabbing the shopping, going into work, eating at a restaurant – and none of them has ever involved having a baby pulled out of my vagina with forceps (thank God – I’d never go to Tesco again if that was the case).

It would be a forgivable error if the Greens’ policy had been withdrawn before the publication of the damning Ockenden review, or the release of the report from the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for birth trauma – which highlighted “harrowing” stories of trauma caused by “mistakes and failures” in the system. But the party’s website suggested the page was updated as recently as April – at which point their childbirth “policy” went from being an oversight to being tone deaf, patronising and dangerous. It’s a wonder Green co-leader, Carla Denyer, wasn’t grilled on the issue during last night’s debate.

A senior party official has since said that the policy – which in its most basic form was an aim to reduce the number of medical interventions in childbirth – has been scrapped. But what was it doing there in the first place? The party insists it hasn’t changed its mind on the policy – but confirmed it won’t be in the manifesto. So which is it? And who on earth will vote for a party that can’t decide whether or not it wants to meddle in dictating how women birth babies?

In the UK, we like to think we’re a world away from the body-policing presidential politics of the US – where candidates’ carefully selected words on abortion pack a serious punch with voters – but who are we kidding? When we’re still talking about the right or wrong way for a woman to give birth in this country, we’re putting politics and profit ahead of women’s safety.

Because of course cost comes into it too. The Green Party describes elective C-sections as being “costly” as well as risky, suggesting that if their bonkers policy was ever put into practice, overstretched midwives would be under even more pressure to steer women away from often critically needed medical interventions.

This shoehorning of politics into pregnancy is, of course, nothing new to women, who are infantilised and lied to from the minute they become pregnant until long after they are clutching a newborn.

NCT classes espouse a militant breastfeeding policy that left several of my fellow attendees in tears when – despite repeatedly attending breastfeeding clinics and desperately squeezing every last drop of milk from their bodies – it just didn’t work for them.

Hospitals say they have a “no elective C-section” policy, despite this being necessary for many women who have already experienced traumatic deliveries – and I have lost count of the number of women who have told me they were ignored, belittled and shamed during childbirth.

One memorable account saw a doctor friend of mine repeatedly telling the midwife there was an issue – she was sneered at and told: “You need to let me be the medic now.” Several hours and a life-threatening emergency later, she was finally listened to.

For me, that “normal, non-medical” event the Greens describe saw me nearly bleed to death during childbirth. I only realised how bad things were when the lovely midwife told me: “You’ve become very poorly now, so we need to sedate you.” My first thought was that when a grown adult is using the word “poorly” to describe another grown adult’s condition, it’s usually pretty bad.

As I was wheeled into theatre, another midwife snuck me a picture of my baby that she’d snapped on her phone. “I thought you’d want to see him,” she whispered, as she told me it was against the rules but she felt bad since I’d not had the chance to properly hold him. Nor had I had a chance to smell his head, or feed him, after the blood poured out of me.

In surgery, a doctor was asked to pass a tray over to his colleague. “I can’t,” he said apologetically. When I looked down, I realised he couldn’t move – since I was clutching both of his hands in mine. “It’s ok,” he said. “I’ll stay here”.

I don’t think for a minute that a single member of that delivery team, or any other, would describe birth as non-medical – and it would be an abysmal failure not to recognise the life-saving role that medicine, and medics, play in safely bringing babies into the world

Years later, I was told: “childbirth is a serious business.” Never was there a truer word spoken – and the Greens would do well to remember that.