WHY ‘GOOD LIFE’ FELICITY DITCHED HER DOCTOR

ONE of the loveliest people I met through my work was the actress Felicity Kendal, who attended antenatal classes with her husband Michael Rudman, the theatre director.

She was very like the character in her role in The Good Life: excited, bright-eyed and shining, and wanting birth to be as natural as possible.

By the time we met, I’d been running classes for the National Childbirth Trust for years, as well as training teachers. She was a committed member of her group and missed only one meeting, when she was on holiday.

As Felicity’s due date came closer, she switched from her private specialist obstetrician and opted to have a midwife at the birth instead.

The obstetrician had been unable to give satisfactory answers to her searching questions, and had told her that she wouldn’t be allowed to move around freely in labour or submerge her body in water.

In the end, Felicity had a joyful and triumphant birth — in her own space, and able to be upright and to do whatever she felt like doing.

She told me that I’d given her the courage to have the kind of birth she wanted ‘in the face of doctors trying to shout me down’. I didn’t teach Nigella Lawson, but I met her shortly after she gave birth to her last child. It was a meeting of minds.

Nigella had opted for a home birth. She was still fresh from the experience: scented with breast milk, luminous, dewy-eyed, touched with the extra beauty of new motherhood.

She spoke about the importance for her of giving birth in her own space, having those she loved around her, and of being free to move around and to make whatever sounds she wanted. For her, the birth of her child was as it should be — an outpouring of love.