Five key findings from our investigation into the Free Birth Society | Childbirth
The Free Birth Society (FBS) is a North Carolina-led company that promotes the idea that women give birth without a midwife or doctor present.
It is led by Emilee Saldaya and Yolande Norris-Clark, ex-doulas turned social media influencers who gained a global audience through the FBS podcast, downloaded millions of times.
FBS profits from the sale of its free childbirth educational video guide and access to a paid membership group for pregnant women. It runs two online schools that train “radical birth attendants” and “authentic midwives” to support women as they give birth.
During a year-long investigation, we reviewed hundreds of hours of FBS podcasts, videos, documents, and course materials, interviewed 10 former initiates, and analyzed thousands of pages of journal entries, medical notes, message threads, and legal documents relating to his followers’ births.
We also interviewed more than 60 FBS-influenced mothers, studied video footage of unassisted births, and consulted with some of the world’s leading obstetricians and midwifery experts. Here are five things we learned.
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1. Many FBS claims contradict evidence-based medical advice
For a healthy mother in a low-risk pregnancy, experts say the risk of free delivery is generally low, although most do not recommend it. “Across whole populations, labor and birth without professional support is associated with higher levels of risk for mother and baby,” said Professor Soo Downe, a senior UK midwife at Lancaster University.
Downe was one of four medical experts who reviewed FBS material for the Guardian. All agreed that the information FBS provided to pregnant women included medically illiterate, misleading or dangerous content. Examples include the false claim that there is “zero” risk of infection when cutting an umbilical cord, incorrect advice on how to resolve a rare but life-threatening condition called shoulder dystocia, and advocacy for a passive approach to neonatal resuscitation that poses a high risk to babies of long-term neurological damage or death.
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2. FBS is linked to real damage all over the world
We identified 48 cases of late stillbirths or neonatal deaths or other forms of serious harm involving mothers or birth attendants who appear to be linked to FBS, for example after signing up for its courses or appearing on its podcasts. Most of the harm cases involve mothers in the United States and Canada, but they include births in Switzerland, France, South Africa, Thailand, India, Australia, the United Kingdom and Israel.
When free births go wrong, it is impossible to say whether the outcome would have been different with medical support. But in 18 cases, all of which involved in-depth interviews with mothers, we found evidence to suggest that FBS played an important role in the decision-making of the mother or birth attendant, leading to potentially preventable tragedies. They include the case of Gabrielle Lopez, a first-time mother from Pennsylvania. His son Esau was stuck during his birth in 2022 and suffered brain damage caused by lack of oxygen. He is now seriously disabled.
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3. Saldaya, the general director of FBS, directly advises women during childbirth
Saldaya sometimes gave direct advice to women during their labor, via phone calls or messages. This happened in the case of Lorren Holliday, who became the first known FBS-connected mother to lose a baby, in 2018. Saldaya denied advising Holliday, telling students: “I didn’t know this woman at all. However, the Guardian reviewed more than 100 messages exchanged between Saldaya and Holliday during his five days of active work at his home in the California desert.
Despite numerous signs that Holliday was in a medical emergency, Saldaya encouraged to continue, before finally providing him with a scenario to deceive the hospital staff about the details of his work. Her daughter, Journey Moon, was stillborn. In 2024, Saldaya also counseled Haley Bordeaux, a mother from Virginia, via phone calls and text messages to a friend; she had a healthy baby but had several strokes caused by severe pre-eclampsia that left her temporarily blind.
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4. FBS takes advantage of growing distrust of maternity services
Women are attracted to FBS for understandable reasons. Scandals in maternity care and concerns among some about an overly medicalized approach to childbirth and, in some cases, obstetric neglect and abuse, have created a ready market for FBS. Saldaya and Norris-Clark exploit these concerns, accusing doctors and “doctor-women” of “sabotageing” women’s deliveries, sexually assaulting and “fingering” mothers, and even committing “murder.” Even some free-birth advocates say the couple is promoting an unusually dogmatic version.
But they are also skillful businesswomen, gifted at monetizing their ideology. FBS is estimated to have generated more than $13 million (£9.9 million) in revenue since 2018. Nearly 1,000 students have graduated from the Radical Birth Keeper School, which charged $6,000 for a three-month Zoom course for “authentic midwives”, and the MatriBirth Midwifery Institute (MMI), a “gold standard intensive online midwifery school” one-year term of $12,000.
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5. FBS leaders appear undeterred by growing criticism
Saldaya and Norris-Clark did not respond to requests for comment. There are signs that they may be adapting their approach. On a call with students this year, Saldaya suggested that FBS may have gone too far in calling their MMI a “midwifery” school (it has since been renamed the MatriBirth Mentor Institute). In May 2025, FBS posted a disclaimer on Instagram, saying its content was for “educational and informational” purposes and was not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical issues related to pregnancy or childbirth.
However, Saldaya and Norris-Clark also push back against criticism of their business and the risks it poses to mothers and babies. Norris-Clark recently called critics “pathetic losers,” defending FBS as “the most ethical type of business you can run.” After the Guardian’s investigation was published, Saldaya posted a statement on Instagram criticizing “mainstream news propaganda.” “That’s what it means to be a disruptor,” she said. “They will try to discredit you. They will lie about you. They will try to silence what they don’t understand.”
