VIDEO. I give birth at home

Isabelle is a midwife who practices her profession in an unusual way: in Touraine, she helps future mothers give birth at home. A practice that is not widespread in France, where less than one in four hundred births take place at home, compared to one in eight in the Netherlands, for example.

Liberal midwives denounce a “witch hunt”

Why is childbirth so medicalized in our country? Safety of mother and child of course, but also pressure from health authorities on liberal midwives, who denounce “all-medical” and claim to be victims of a “witch hunt”. Lawsuits, financial penalties, what are the constraints faced by those who assert that a birth is not an illness?

“Special Envoy” followed several home births, to understand why more and more women are choosing to give birth at home.

A report by Marine Haag, Margaux Bachelier, Alex Gouti, Emmanuelle Bach, Jérôme Mars, Emilie Janin for France.tv press broadcast in “Special Envoy” on October 27, 2022.

> Replays of France Télévisions news magazines are available on the franceinfo website and its mobile application (iOS & Android), “Magazines” section.