Monday briefing: What a new Guardian investigation reveals about a group ‘radicalising’ women into unassisted birth

Good morning. This weekend, the Guardian launched the results of its year-long investigation into radical free birthing, and the US-based Free Birth Society (FBS). Our reporting reveals how influencers made millions by pushing “free births”, with no medical support, and how the society is now linked to the deaths of newborn babies around the world. FBS, a multimillion dollar business, promotes a version of free birth, otherwise known as unassisted birth, that is seen as extreme, even among advocates of the practice. Unlike home births, which have a midwife in attendance, free birth involves delivering without medical assistance. The FBS advises mothers to steer clear of doctors and midwives, is anti-ultrasound (which it falsely claims harms babies) and downplays serious medical conditions, the Guardian found. The investigation, told in a longform feature by Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne – with a podcast series due out in December (subscribe at the Guardian Investigates feed to get it automatically when it launches) – takes a deep dive into how FBS, led by former doulas Emilee Saldaya and Yolande Norris-Clark, came about and how it influences women via podcasts, social media and online schools. It reveals a disturbing pattern by which scores of mothers influenced by FBS experienced stillbirths, neonatal deaths or serious harm to babies or themselves. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Lucy about the women who lost their babies, how they were “radicalised” into choosing this birthing method and the figures behind FBS. First, this morning’s headlines. Five big stories Ukraine | European countries proposed a radical alternative Ukraine peace plan on Sunday that omits some of the pro-Russia points made in the original US-backed document and calls for Kyiv’s sovereignty to be respected. Politics | Rachel Reeves will launch a fresh crackdown on benefit fraud, alongside scrapping the two-child welfare limit and freezing rail fares, while putting forward a multibillion-pound tax-raising package. Media | The BBC is planning to overhaul the way it investigates editorial concerns, in a move that will dilute the influence of a Conservative figure accused of trying to sway its political impartiality. Skye Gyngell | Tributes have been paid to the pioneering chef and restaurant proprietor, who has died aged 62. Politics | David Cameron has disclosed he was treated for prostate cancer and has called for a targeted screening programme. In depth: ‘On the face of it, it seems like a positive social media account’ Most of the cases of harm in the Guardian’s investigation related to mothers in the US and Canada, but they also included births in Switzerland, France, South Africa, Thailand, India, Australia, the UK, Ireland and Israel. Many women join FBS via a private, paid-for online community called the Lighthouse. The organisation presents a sanitised version of free birth, never platforming guests who regret their decision and deleting negative comments online. “On the face of it, it seems like a positive social media account showing positive experiences of women during birth,” Lucy Osborne says. “It looks professional, trustworthy. When I was first pregnant, if I’d have come across that, I’d probably have watched these things and felt really inspired.” FBS, while telling women that birth isn’t difficult, do acknowledge some medical emergencies – although it claims they are extremely rare when women freebirth. But what Lucy and Sirin began to see, in FBS forums, was a disturbing pattern: so much of the information was “false and misleading”. While the prevalence of freebirthing is low, it appears to be increasing as women lose trust in professional maternity services and an increasingly medicalised approach to birth. It is especially acute in the US, which has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among wealthy countries in the world. *** How many women reported deaths or serious harm ? Lucy said it was “difficult” to quantify how many babies have died in FBS circles, and impossible to say conclusively whether negative birth outcomes would have been different if medical professionals had been present. However she and Sirin identified 48 late-term stillbirths or neonatal deaths, or other forms of serious harm, involving mothers or birth attendants who appear to be linked to FBS – as students in their courses, for example, or members of the Lighthouse. Lucy and Sirin focused on a subset of 18 cases in which they were able to interview mothers, whose accounts were corroborated through friends, family and partners, and supported by journal entries, medical notes, video footage, message threads or legal documents. In all those cases, the evidence suggests FBS played a significant role in the mother’s decision-making, leading to potentially avoidable tragedies. “There’s this cycle,” says one ex-Lighthouse member, whose baby was stillborn in 2024. “Children die. It’s known in the community for a time, then new members come into the Lighthouse, and they’re forgotten.” *** How the investigation started Lucy describes seeing a video from an FBS forum, sent to them by a source of Sirin’s, of a baby in “extreme distress” after a long labour. Yet, no one in the forum was advising the mother to go to hospital. “There were really obvious signs of an emergency that any midwife or medical professional would have said urgently needed hospital care,” said Lucy. The woman eventually gave birth and shared a video of her baby, “really, really struggling to breathe”. However, no one in Lighthouse told her to go to hospital. “It was really sad and horrible to watch,” says Lucy. Shortly afterwards, the baby died. Coming across the video was a “turning point”, Lucy says, that drove them to ramp up the investigation. *** Who is behind Free Birthing Society? Saldaya, who founded the FBS, presides over a movement that has told women it was returning something sacred that was stolen from them. “We are truly disrupting the conditioning of over a hundred years of obstetric violence,” Saldaya declared, describing herself, in a promotional YouTube video, as a “pioneer of the birth liberation movement”. Insiders told the Guardian that initially, Saldaya had a “very genuine” concern and compassion for women. As a former doula, she was traumatised by some of the things she saw happening in hospitals, including births that she perceived as assaults, and too many C-sections. But she was also clearly interested in making money, said Lucy, and as FBS became more successful, Saldaya “became more dogmatic” and more interested in saying what would grow the business, insiders told them. Saldaya and Norris-Clarke have described medical attempts at newborn resuscitation as a form of “sabotage”, and exploit fears that doctors and midwives will sexually assault women in hospitals. According to experts, they also made false or dangerous claims about haemorrhage, shoulder dystocia, retained placenta and infant resuscitation. They promised their followers they, too, could experience euphoric unassisted birth, if they dropped their reliance on a medical establishment that often gets it wrong on women’s health. Freebirth was not just safe, but safer than one relying on medical support, they argued. But at key moments, such as when Lorren Holliday became the first-known FBS-linked mother to lose a baby in 2018, when Saldaya may have reflected on what had occurred, insiders told Sirin and Lucy, she “doubled down” and “became more extreme”. Norris-Clark and Saldaya were sometimes careful to caveat their advice, stressing they were not qualified medical professionals. They acknowledged there could be life-threatening scenarios, though presented them as very rare, and said it was a woman’s choice how to have her baby and whether to transfer to hospital. After publication of Sirin and Lucy’s investigation this weekend, Saldaya posted a statement on Instagram criticising “propaganda on mainstream news”. “This is what it means to be a disruptor,” she said. “They will try to discredit you. They will lie about you. They will attempt to silence what they don’t understand.” *** How are women ‘radicalised’? “One source said that most people find FBS because they are scared” said Lucy. All most women know about birth is that it is “horribly painful”. “People tell you to read positive birth stories, or positive videos.” And this is where FBS steps in. Via its podcast, it shares video after video, of women having these “really amazing births that are spiritual, orgasmic, pain free” drawing people in. But in other FBS podcasts, doctors are vilified as “rapists” and any experience of medical care during birth are denigrated, Lucy said. Other FBS podcasts with “experts” lull women into a “false sense of security about how safe free birth is”. Women are then often encouraged to take costly FBS courses, starting with their Complete Guide to Freebirth at $399, which contains “dangerous” information, falsely claiming many common birth complications are nothing to worry about and hardly ever happen in freebirth. “And so a lot of women are listening to that before they give birth” Lucy said. They feel “completely safe” and don’t have any backup plans, because within FBS women are taught to “not even contemplate hospital” if you are truly focused on freebirth. One of the key mantras of FBS, said Lucy, is “radical responsibility”, a “very clever tool” which means that if anything goes wrong, women have this “burden on them, that its their fault”. • To hear The Birth Keepers podcast subscribe to the Guardian Investigates feed, and you will receive it automatically when it launches in December. And in the meantime, you can enjoy the fantastic investigation into Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest woman – a renowned climate sceptic, “Trumpette” and litigant – even against her own children … What else we’ve been reading Zoe Williams’ interview with the outgoing CEO of the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, is a must read today – sketching out the rough few weeks he just had with Labour’s new plans for migrants; and why he thinks things could still get better. Poppy Noor, newsletters team As Cop30 wrapped up in Brazil, the Guardian’s Jon Watts is a must-read on the five factors that hindered real progress at the climate conference (including, of course, the looming spectre of Donald Trump). Charlie Lindlar, newsletters team I enjoyed Polly Hudson’s column this weekend, on her trials and tribulations trying to be the hostess with, as she calls it the “leastess” – and why sometimes it’s OK to just give up. Poppy Charli xcx is on Substack now, and it seems her writing talent translates from songs to essays. In this effortless piece, the singer ruminates on the pros and cons of stardom, and the expectation of celebs to be role models. “I don’t care if they tell the truth or lie or play a character or adopt a persona or fabricate entire scenarios and worlds,” she writes. “To me that’s the point, that’s the drama, that’s the fun, that’s the FANTASY”. Charlie Liz Johnson Artur relives how she photographed the “heady nights and glistening bodies” of London’s cult queer club PDA in this celebratory piece. Karen Sport Football | Arsenal thumped Tottenham 4-1, thanks to an Eberechi Eze hat-trick, to go six points clear at the top of the table. Elsewhere, Leeds lost at home 2-1 to Aston Villa. Rugby | England survived a late scare to hold on and beat Argentina 27-23, their 11th successive win securing a clean sweep in the Autumn internationals. Formula One | McLaren apologised to their drivers after a breach of Formula One regulations led to the disqualification of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, the two leading title contenders, from the Las Vegas Grand Prix, and put the F1 drivers’ championship within the grasp of the reigning champion, Max Verstappen. The front pages “BBC to overhaul standards panel as fallout from bias row continues,” is lead story at the Guardian. The i paper says “Reeves to unveil £600m raid on foreign student university fees” and the Telegraph runs with “Reeves’ £15bn welfare giveaway”. “Reeves to hit 100,000 homes with surcharge” is top story at the Times, while the Mirror has “Help us, Chancellor”, splashing on its pre-budget poll. The FT says “Trump rails at Kyiv and Europe amid doubts over US stance on peace plan” and the Mail has “Cameron reveals he had prostate cancer”. “Shirley – I nearly died on Strictly” – is the Sun on the TV show’s head judge, Shirley Ballas. Today in Focus ‘Enshittification’: how we got the internet no one asked for Do you ever get the feeling that the internet isn’t what it used to be? Well, tech critic Corey Doctorow thinks you’re right. He lays out his three-step theory, explaining why sites from Amazon to Google to Instagram seem to offer a worsening experience … and what can be done to stop it. Nosheen Iqbal reports. Cartoon of the day | Edith Pritchett Sign up for Inside Saturday to see more of Edith Pritchett’s cartoons, the best Saturday magazine content and an exclusive look behind the scenes The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Entering her 30s, Emily Bratt began to notice a problem: her life “was rapidly diverging from that of my nearest and dearest.” As friends paired off, had children or moved away, relationships changed and even faded way. But she discovered a bright side too – making new friends as an adult was much easier than we’re led to believe. “The stats may suggest that it’s harder to make friends as you age. But what they also do is instil in us defeatist beliefs about our agency in the world,” she writes in this piece. “Age doesn’t stop you from making friends – fear, anxiety and sadness do. I believe that once you dedicate time to moving through difficult emotions, you will tend to find that there are swathes of fantastic people out there ready to be your pal.” Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply