Birth Rights

Even though doctors and midwives know that when women give birth at home, on the whole there are less complications than hospital births, independent midwives across the globe are being persecuted for providing loving care as an alternative to what the medicalised system offers.

On Sunday, over 500 people filled the Daylesford town hall for Family Fun Day: a celebration of birth. There was live music, local food, a magic show, a pop-up op shop, face painting, circus workshops, story telling, craft activities and a silent auction. All proceeds went to a local independent midwife, to cover her legal fees as she fights a bureaucratic system that doesn't understand or value what she does for birthing women and their families.

The afternoon was an enormous success: one community's joyously positive protest for women's rights to give birth in their own way, in their own time, and in their own place.