Home Truths
Under the NHS, every woman has the right to have her baby at home. She is entitled to the services of a qualified NHS midwife, for antenatal care in her own home and attendance at the birth.
However, in the face of government policies favouring 100% hospitalization for birth, it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to exercise one's right to a home delivery. Many parents do not have the strength, support, or desire to wage a battle during pregnancy.
‘Home Truths’ explores the battleground – why it exists and how it affects prospective parents and midwives – through a series of interviews: Judy, the midwife who gives in to pressure to have her first baby in hospital; Mike and Kathleen who persevere and stay at home; Beatrice, who has her fifth child at home with no medical assistance; and Evelyn Butler, a 60 year old midwife who retires from the NHS to start up as a private domiciliary midwife.
The video also includes footage of two home births, and suggests that the issue is not so much about the place of birth as about the kind of control one has, or wants, over an intimate and important development in one’s life.
Description source: Circles Catalogue (circa 1983). Compiled by Helen MacKintosh and Margaret Gillan. Edited by Felicity Sparrow.