Emilee Saldaya, founder of the Free Birth Society and longtime proponent of women giving birth with no medical assistance or prenatal care, announced to her followers last week that her third pregnancy had ended in a stillbirth. "Our son, our baby, was not born alive," Saldaya wrote on the society's Instagram page. She wrote that the delivery took place at 41 weeks of gestation, but gave no further details. "There are no words for this pain, this experience, and all that it brings," she wrote. "I will be taking a suspended moment for myself and my family in this infinite well of grief." Saldaya and her husband, Jonny, have two other children. Saldaya once posted video of her second child shortly after delivery as he took his first breaths "without intervention." (Content warning: nudity, language, and graphic images that can be hard to watch; link is here.)
The Free Birth Society has come under scrutiny in the past:
- In 2018, a woman came forward with a story of laboring for six days in the desert before delivering a stillborn baby girl she named Journey Moon. She says she posted multiple updates to the Free Birth Society's now-defunct Facebook group, including as she became concerned that her water had broken and she was in pain from being unable to urinate. Doctors ultimately delivered the stillborn baby, and the mother claimed her urinary tract infection had contributed to the infant's death.
- In 2019, another woman's pregnancy ended in stillbirth at 45 weeks' gestation. She later shared her story, claiming members of the Free Birth Society reassured her even as fetal movements diminished, and told her to trust her body. She ended up in a hospital, where doctors delivered her stillborn baby.
- In one Free Birth Society video, watched by Amanda Hess after she bought the Free Birth Society's $399 online course, Saldaya addresses the subject of stillbirths, writes Hess in a piece about the freebirthing movement from her book (excerpted at Marie Claire earlier this year). "Sometimes birth is a meeting with death. This happens during home birth, and it happens in the hospital," Saldaya reportedly says in the video. "I came to the conclusion that I would actively choose to be in my own intimate space even if the outcome was death. ... It is more important to me to receive my baby into my own hands, unmediated by machines and strangers and bright lights."
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