Sarah Schmid, 36, from Halle, Germany, has given birth in her garden, her living room, a forest and even a water butt
A MUM-OF-SIX told how more than 1.4 million people watched her give birth – after she delivered her youngest son by a slide in her back garden and then uploaded the footage to YouTube.
Sarah Schmid, 36, had all six of her children - Johanna , 11, Jonathon, 10, Emanuel, eight, Elisabeth, six, Konstantin, three, and, Kiran, one - outside of hospital.
She was inspired to adopt “free birthing” – when you give birth outside without any medical assistance – after training to be a doctor and seeing people deliver babies in the wards.
This experience put her off giving birth in a medical setting, she said.
“I studied medicine to become a doctor, although now I am a full-time mum,” Sarah, married to Tim, 41, explained.
“There I watched people giving birth in hospital and I thought, ‘I can’t do this. It isn’t relaxing.’
“It made me realise I wanted to give birth without intervention.”
After having Johanna at home in September 2006, with the help of a midwife but no pain relief, for her second, Jonathon, she decided to forgo any medical assistance.
“I didn’t like having a midwife and the birth was long and painful – I was in labour for 15 hours,” she said.
“So I did a lot of reading about birth myself. I tried to learn everything about birth I thought I should know.”
By the time she was pregnant with Jonathon she was a baby expert and felt perfectly prepared for his arrival – in a forest in Sweden, where she used to live.
She was alone in July 2008 when he arrived after four hours - and Tim arrived afterwards to take photos.
Sarah, who lives in France, but is from Halle, Germany, said: “I can relax best outside. I can look up to the sky, feel grass under my feet and focus.
“I found it stressful in hospital. I found the forest very relaxing, so I thought it was the best place for me to have my baby.
“My waters broke around 11pm and I walked to the forest at 1.30am and he was born around 3.30am.”
She said she wasn’t worried about anyone stumbling upon her as she laid out her picnic blanket and delivered her son.
“It was very isolated there,” she explained. “There had been a storm, so there were just broken trees. It was bare and beautiful.
“I didn’t mind Tim not being there. I knew he had fears about the birth – especially because it was unassisted. But I felt I had to deal with my own fears first.
“I did not want to be overwhelmed with fear. He came afterwards. I called him when the baby was born."
He took pictures of their little boy before they headed home – without visiting a hospital.
Just a few years later, and without any medical attention, Sarah delivered son Emanuel in their garden.
She explained how Tim was taking photos of her bump when she felt like she needed to push.
“I wanted to give birth to him in a Native American-style tepee we have in our garden,” she said.
“But then the birth happened so quickly – I just had to stop mid-way to the tepee, without even reaching it.
“It was only 20 minutes before he came out.”
It seems Sarah isn't the only mum who likes giving birth outside.
In 2016 Simone Thurber, 43, posted the footage of her youngest daughter Perouze, now four, being born in a stream on YouTube, where it's been viewed a whopping 52 million times.
Even more amazingly, Simone didn't have any pain relief or a midwife or doctor with her.
"I didn’t put the video online to make a statement, I simply thought a few people would be interested in what it would be like to give birth in nature and to inspire women that if they wanted to they could have a child outside a hospital," she explained.
"I am not a hippy drippy mum, but I wanted my fourth child to be born away from beeping machines and a hospital environment."
Elisabeth arrived next in April 2012 – indoors because it was so chilly on her birthday, her mum explained.
“Elisabeth was quick,” she recalled. “She was born in the living room as it was cold out. Johanna wanted to watch it, she was there. But the boys had gone to the neighbour's.
“I filmed her arriving – I filmed all the births, with the exception of the first two.”
Sarah fancied a water birth for Konstantin in February 2015, but also wanted to stand up, so she hovered naked in a water butt.
“I thought a water birth would be a good thing to try,” she explained.
“I had a rain barrel because I like standing up. But he arrived so quickly the barrel was only half full.
"I cut the cord myself, delivered the placenta and cleaned the baby.”
Then, finally, Kiran arrived in the back garden in September 2016, while his brothers and sisters watched.
“They were really excited and not at all scared," Sarah explained.
"All the other births were at night, so they were delighted they got to see one. They watched TV when the contractions were coming, because they aren’t very exciting, but when the baby was coming they ran out.
“One of the boys was really excited. Though Johanna was disappointed it was another boy."
A video of the experience was posted on her YouTube page, where it's garnered 688,000 views. A second copy has 700,000 views – meaning in total around 1.4 million people have watched her give birth.
But Sarah doesn’t mind, explaining: "A woman looks like a woman. It is the most natural and normal thing in the world. I don’t think it's strange.
The term free birthing is used to describe a woman having a baby without the help of any medical professionals.
This means that any mum-to-be who and elects for this delivery method would have no clinical monitoring, access to pain relief or the use of modern technologies during labour.
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“In old cultures the girls would watch their mothers give birth so they would know what it was like. Now the chance to do this is very small.
“This gives people the chance to see birth, and especially birth without intervention. It is a rare thing to see.”
She said responses to her unusual birthing technique have been “very different".
“Some people are excited and some think it’s the most stupid think I could do,” she said.
“I don’t mind. I love my happy and healthy family.”
Sarah has written a book, , about how to have a self-assisted pregnancy.
Want to know more about free-birthing? Meet Simone who gave birth in a STREAM.
And this mum gave birth outside a strip club... we bet she didn't expect that.
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