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Childbirth

Midlands Area Home birth?

2 replies

YesYABU · 13/01/2016 15:28

Apologies if this is the wrong place to post this. Does anyone have any experiences of either requesting or having a home birth in the Leicestershire area?

We are on the border with Northants which I know has a designated home birth team but I'm not sure we can access this as technically people round here go to Kettering General, Leicester Royal or Leicester General. I also cannot afford to pay for an independent midwife or doula.

I understand that the requesting a home birth may not be straight forward and that I may be dissuaded from this depending on the which community midwife I see to request this, so ideally want to be forearmed in order to defend my choice. I know that ultimately it is my decision (as per NICE guidelines 2014, NCM 2006 etc.) but can't imagine it being straight forward to get this. Don't know if anyone else has experience of this?

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Fourormore · 13/01/2016 15:37

Do you have any medical issues that would make a home birth risky? If not, I can't see that you are likely to have a problem. I'm on the Midlands but not Leics, so I'm unsure of specifics. The NHS seem to be promoting home birth at the moment. I had my first home birth nearly 10 years ago, a second a couple of years ago and am having another in 6 months or so. All the midwives I've had have been enthusiastic (except for one miserable one that just wanted to focus on the reasons that a transfer would be necessary).

www.homebirth.org.uk/ is a really helpful website.

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YesYABU · 13/01/2016 15:54

I have hypermobile joints and fibromyalgia. So technically this can be a high risk thing with an increased risk of rapid delivery and tearing, but then I think this can be said for most deliveries! Since planning to become pregnant I have managed with no pain killers, whereas I was previously on a daily dose of codeine and diazepam amongst other things. Have learnt to cope with pain in different ways.

One of the main reasons that I want to have a home birth is that I feel I will have more control over my movements and finding positions that work for me. Worst case scenario would be being made to lie flat on my back which I find uncomfortable at the best of times anyway.