How was your home birth experience?

[HannahM91]

Hi all,
I am currently doing an access course at college with the intention to study midwifery in September 2013.
I'm currently doing an independent project and my chosen subject is 'Home Births.'
I have created a questionnaire that would really help me collect data to use in my project. If anyone has had a home birth could they please take the time to fill it out for me!
Thank you!
This is the link: www.surveymonkey.com/s/D2SQQTQ

[ImKateandsoismywife]

Done, good luck with your course

[PickleSarnie]

Done. Best of luck.

[Locketjuice]

My sister filled it out based on hers as I haven't had one

[LimeLeafLizard]

done! Good idea to survey on here!

[chaosisawayoflife]

Done. Best of luck!

[BlueChampagne]

Enjoy ...

[MrsHBaby3]

done for my prev hb, and due another anyday!

[Maz007]

Done

[ElectricSheep]

Done. I hope you enjoy your training.

[KatieMiddleton]

I've filled it in but it does make quite a lot of assumptions and you don't collect data for how many births people have had and whether it was 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th baby a hb was planned - which is useful to know when analysing your data.

I've had 2 homebirths so it was difficult to fill in because it assumes only one but I had a go! I couldn't answer Q3 because it was biased towards negative experience nor Q5 because I didn't have a specific midwife.

Just in case it's useful...

More people attempt homebirth than actually have one. Most are transferred in for "failure to progress". So you might plan one but not get one.

Not everybody has a caseload midwife (Q5) so there may not even be a discussion about home birth and if you did have one you may not have seen that midwife again! Quite shocking really. I'd never met any of the 3 MWs involved in dc2's birth and only 1 of the 2 from dc1's prior to labour.

"Too far" is rarely given as a reason by HCPs not to do homebirth. Have a look at the stats for Wales and Cornwall. Distance to hospital is longer but hb rate much, much higher than UK average.

If you want to know more about homebirth look up AIMS and NCT. Also do read this article. She influenced my decision hugely.

Good luck with your studies :)

[KatieMiddleton]

That article isn't the one I thought it was although having just read it, it is marvellous. The one i read was written in 2007 or 2008 but I can't find it. It appeared in the Family section of the Guardian.

[ISpyPlumPie]

Done. Good luck .

[Flisspaps]

I was going to fill it in, but you don't cover my option of 'MW not fully in agreement due to homebirth against medical advice' nor was there anywhere that I could see I could say I sadly transferred into hospital.

[AmandaPayne]

Done, but in addition to the above, you might also want to think about whether your pain relief question is intended to cover alternative pain relief (positioning, water, massage) or just pharmaceutical pain relief.

Good luck with your studies.

[sweetkitty]

Done 2 homebirths and 2 hospital births homebirths much better