Birth in hospital: Where the fear comes from and what has changed

"My birth was almost worthy of a film. It all happened so quickly that I almost thought I would have to give birth in the taxi, " Sally Merres recalls with a grin. Her waters broke at around two o'clock in the morning of 5 November 2025, two weeks before her due date. Sally and her partner Shane travelled to her mother's house to deliver their dog. They actually wanted to drive straight on to Clinique Bohler, but the car wouldn't start – the battery was flat. So Shane had to order a taxi. During the journey, Sally's contractions got stronger and stronger, and she was overcome with nausea. The driver had to stop next to the roundabout in Kirchberg because she was vomiting. When they arrived at the hospital delivery room, they were immediately let in by other expecting couples.

The birth of Sally's child took less than four hours: her daughter Sadie was born at 05:55. As it was her first child and her first birth, the 34-year-old opted for a hospital birth. "I imagine home birth as romantic, but I was worried that complications could arise and that I wouldn't get help quickly enough, " explains Sally. On the advice of her friends, she found a freelance midwife as soon as possible to accompany her during her pregnancy. However, because she was a freelance midwife, she was not allowed to attend Sally's birth in hospital. Sally was therefore cared for by the midwife who was on duty at the time of her birth. Unfortunately, Sally's gynaecologist was also unable to attend her birth because he was on holiday. In the end, it happened to be her mother's gynaecologist who delivered Sadie.

According to Sally's own statement, everything at her birth happened consensually and well-communicated; she experienced neither physical nor psychological violence (see infobox). "Maybe it was naive of me, but I never thought about violence during childbirth, " says Sally. "But that could also be because I actively avoided negative birth reports. Not because I didn't see them as a reality, but because I didn't want to be scared of giving birth." Sally actually wanted a water birth, but because everything happened so quickly, there was no time for this. An epidural anaesthetic would have been possible, but in the end she refused it. In hindsight, she describes the pain as bearable and says that she only had to push four or five times – then Sadie was already there. There was only one situation in which she felt insecure and was under the impression that she wasn't being listened to enough. When Sally arrived at the maternity ward, her cervix was six centimetres dilated. After about three quarters of an hour, she already felt like she needed to push and told the midwife, who assured her that it was still too early.