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While Esau Lopez was struggling to breathe for the opening 17 minutes of his time on the planet, the atmosphere in the area remained serene, even euphoric. Gentle music played from a sound system in a modest residence in a suburb of Pennsylvania. “You are a goddess,” uttered one of companions in the room.

Solely Esau’s mom, Gabrielle Lopez, sensed something was concerning. She was pushing hard, but her baby would not be born. “Can you help [him] out?” she inquired, as Esau appeared. “Baby is arriving,” the acquaintance answered. A brief time later, Lopez inquired once more, “Can you hold him?” Someone else whispered, “Baby is secure.” Several moments passed. A third time, Lopez questioned, “Can you hold him?”

Lopez was unable to see the birth cord entangled around her son’s neck, nor the foam emerging from his lips. She was unaware that his shoulder was grinding against her pubic bone, comparable to a rubber rotating on gravel. But “in her heart”, she says, “I felt he was stuck.”

Esau was experiencing shoulder dystocia, signifying his head was delivered, but his body did not follow. Birth attendants and doctors are prepared in how to address this problem, which happens in as many as 1% of childbirths, but as Lopez was giving birth unassisted, indicating giving birth without any medical providers present, not a single person in the space comprehended that, with every minute, Esau was experiencing an irreversible brain injury. In a birth attended by a qualified expert, a brief interval between a baby’s skull and body coming out would be an critical situation. Seventeen minutes is unthinkable.

Nobody enters a cult willingly. You think you’re becoming part of a great movement

With a extraordinary exertion, Lopez pushed, and Esau was delivered at evening on 9 October 2022. He was flaccid and unresponsive and lifeless. His body was white and his limbs were bluish, indicators of acute oxygen deprivation. The single utterance he produced was a soft noise. His dad his father gave Esau to his mother. “Do you think he should breathe?” she asked. “He’s fine,” her acquaintance responded. Lopez embraced her unmoving son, her eyes wide.

All present in the room was scared now, but concealing it. To articulate what they were all experiencing seemed overwhelming, similar to a betrayal of Lopez and her ability to welcome Esau into the life, but also of something larger: of birth itself. As the moments dragged on, and Esau remained still, Lopez and her companions repeated of what their teacher, the originator of the Free Birth Society, this influencer, had instructed them: birth is safe. Trust the process.

So they controlled their increasing anxiety and remained. “It seemed,” recalls Lopez’s friend, “that we stepped into some form of alternate reality.”

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Lopez had become acquainted with her three friends through the unassisted birth organization, a company that promotes natural delivery. Different from home birth – childbirth at home with a childbirth specialist in supervision – unassisted birth means giving birth without any healthcare guidance. This group endorses a method widely seen as intense, even among unassisted birth supporters: it is opposed to ultrasound, which it falsely claims damages babies, diminishes serious medical conditions and encourages wild pregnancy, meaning pregnancy without any prenatal care.

The organization was established by former birth companion Emilee Saldaya, and most women discover it through its audio program, which has been streamed 5m times, its social media profile, which has 132,000 followers, its video platform, with almost 25m views, or its bestselling detailed natural delivery resource, a video course jointly produced by the founder with co-collaborator previous childbirth assistant the co-founder, offered digitally from their professional site. Review of FBS’s economic data by a specialist, a financial investigator and academic at this institution, indicates it has earned income exceeding $13m since 2018.

After Lopez encountered the audio program she was enthralled, hearing an program frequently. For $299, she entered the organization's subscription-based, members-only forum, the community name, where she connected with the three friends in the space when Esau was born. To get ready for her natural delivery, she acquired the comprehensive manual in May 2022 for $399 – a significant amount to the previously 23-year-old childcare provider.

After consuming hundreds of hours of organization resources, Lopez grew convinced natural delivery was the most secure way to bring her baby, separate from unnecessary medical interventions. Before in her three-day labor, Lopez had gone to her community health center for an ultrasound as the infant showed reduced movement as typically. Staff advised her to be admitted, alerting she was at increased probability of shoulder dystocia, as the infant was “big”. But Lopez didn't worry. Fresh in her memory was a communication she’d received from the co-founder, stating anxieties of shoulder dystocia were “overstated”. From The Complete Guide to Freebirth, Lopez had understood that female “systems cannot produce babies that we are unable to deliver”.

After a few minutes, with Esau remaining unresponsive, the spell in Lopez’s room ended. Lopez responded immediately, instinctively administering resuscitation on her baby as her {friend|companion|acquaint