Simone Thurbur (Photo : Facebook/Early Birth Method)
The viral video of a 43-year-old Australian woman giving birth to her fourth child in the creek has spawned a debate on how safe and healthy is the more natural way of delivering a baby that Simone Thurbur is advocating.
Thurbur is a doula and therapist who planned the birth of her fourth child, Perouz, to be done in a stream in Daintree Rainforest, the oldest rainforest in the world, in Australia. Although there was a midwife and a standby helicopter pilot ready to fly her to a hospital if there are complications, she eventually gave birth in 2012 as she wanted to, reported Daily Dot.
A year after the birth, she posted the video on YouTube which has been viewed almost 55 million times. Thurbur shared that it has long been her dream to give birth in nature after she saw a birth movie and completed her doula training.
She began to labor at 11 p.m. on Feb. 3, 2012. Despite bathing for three hours, her contractions were very slow. Thurbur described the 12-hour labor as not a blissful orgasmic birth but a normal birth in a different setting.
However, some of those who saw the 22-minute video disagree with her choice because of the risk she took of exposing her newborn to bacteria and parasites. But Thurbur disagreed as she insisted that the water was very clean and pristine.
Some readers of her Facebook page, Early Birth Method, sided with the mother of four. Evon Wilmott-Bradshaw said that after watching the video, she wants to also give birth similar to how Thurbur did it but is not sure if it is possible in England in January when her next child is due because of the anticipated rain and snow during that time.
Isabel Kortz considers birth a gift and natural process. She blamed doctors and gynecologists for placing so much artificial fear on pregnant women. Thurbur said she hopes that Perouze’s birth and the fear it evoked woke up people to another level. She pointed out that the Earth was designed to perfectly support species and it is people’s task to fix problems such as the parasites and bacteria in the water that some readers cited.
But Mark Peluso countered, “You can’t ‘fix’ what has always been there” since the flesh-eating bacteria, amoebas and parasites “are part of the original world.” He added that Thurbur was lucky she and Perouz were not infected. He challenged her to have the water from the creek in Daintree Rainforest tested for microbes and parasites.
