THEY insist they're not pain or adrenaline junkies or superwomen and they have no special powers - but their way of giving birth is certainly "extreme".

"Freebirthers" - an increasingly popular labour option coined by an Australian - choose to go through what some call the most painful and potentially frightening experience of a woman's life with no drugs, no midwife and no medical help.

CAN anyone tell me when parenting became a competitive sport? "I got pregnant straight away and my daughter's been sleeping through the night since she was four weeks old, her favorite foods are sushi, hummus and olives, she's been toilet trained since she was one and she taught herself how to read before she was three. My name's Fiona, nice to meet you."

Let me guess? Malvern?

"STOP fussing and let the little blighters cry their hearts out … or carry them around at all times so they have no chance to get upset at all. These are the poles-apart parenting methods being trialled in the controversial ABC1 program Bringing Up Baby — and they represent the extremes of the spectrum of how we look after our babies these days."