2054“Shortly after the birth of our first child – I should point out I’m expecting our fourth – my husband turned to me and said this. Unbeknown to me, at the end of a 26-hour labour where I gave birth at home, the midwives had detached the gas canister tube.

"I thought I was breathing in lots and lots of gas and air, but it had run out a few hours earlier. The nurse was making a sort of sucky-sucky noise every time I was breathing in gas and air for all my life was worth. But there were no drugs at all.

“My husband was very, very nervous about the midwives leaving the house without this lie being owned up to. So he got them to confess and actually it was the most empowering thing they could have done for me. I hadn’t realised just what I could do without the other stuff. It left me empowered as a mum.”

Taken at a meeting of the Scone Roses WI in Bedford, UK.