Birth Choices: Why So Many Women and Birthing People Are Still in the Dark
I met with new clients antenatally yesterday for the first time and something really struck me; For all our advances in maternity care, one uncomfortable truth remains: far too many women and birthing people still move through pregnancy without truly understanding the range of options available to them. Not because they aren’t curious. Not because they don’t care. But because our current maternity system simply isn’t creating space for nuanced, human-centred conversations about birth. As a doula and antenatal educator, I see it constantly. Families assume they’re making informed decisions, when really, they’re navigating a funnel—one that quietly channels almost everyone toward the labour ward as the default. The tragedy is that most people don’t even realise there are alternatives, let alone that they’re entitled to explore them. The Illusion of Choice in Modern Maternity Care On paper, pregnant people in the UK have full autonomy. They can choose where and how to give birth. They...
