04/20/2026
Traditional midwives can and normally do provide the same care as a licensed midwife.
Let’s talk about what “The Pitt” got wrong about unassisted pregnancy.
The HBO show’s finale featured a woman without prenatal care who came in with eclampsia and nearly died. The show villainized her choice, painting “wild pregnancy” (freebirth) as reckless and dangerous.
And yes, eclampsia without medical intervention can be deadly. That part is true.
But here’s what the show didn’t explore: WHY women choose freebirth in the first place.
I don’t advocate for unassisted birth. But I understand why women are so traumatized, so dismissed, so violated by the medical system that they’d rather birth alone than submit to it again.
The system has stolen birth from women. It’s turned a normal physiologic process into a medical event requiring management and control. It’s normalized routine inductions, unnecessary interventions that cascade into C-sections, dismissal of women’s concerns, and coercion disguised as “recommendations.”
Women are traumatized. They’re terrified of returning to hospitals. So some choose to birth alone, because it feels safer than the alternative.
This is a failure of the system, not the women. Here’s what the show missed:
Licensed midwifery is the solution.
We ARE the middle ground between a broken medical system and the fear that drives women to freebirth.
Licensed midwives provide comprehensive prenatal care with the same labs, ultrasounds, and testing as OBs. We screen for serious complications like preeclampsia, HELLP syndrome, and gestational diabetes. But we do it through relationship-based care that builds trust instead of fear, with informed consent instead of coercion. We support physiologic birth for low-risk pregnancies and provide appropriate referral and transfer when complications arise.
This is what midwifery care does. We monitor closely. We catch problems early. We know when hospital care is needed. And we refer appropriately.
We bridge the gap between fear of medicine and fear of birth.
Women shouldn’t have to choose between a traumatic, over-medicalized hospital experience or birthing alone without any medical oversight.
We need MORE midwifery care, not less.
If every woman had access to licensed midwifery care, if prenatal appointments weren’t rushed 10-minute checkups, if women felt heard and respected instead of managed and dismissed, freebirth wouldn’t be so appealing.
The solution isn’t to shame women who are so afraid of the medical system that they’d rather go it alone.
The solution is to fix the system that broke their trust in the first place.
Midwifery is part of that solution. We provide the medical oversight women need with the respect and autonomy they deserve.
We ARE the middle ground. And we desperately need more of us.
