Natural Versus Not Natural

[LadyGibrill]

Hi guys so i am 28wks and i am sooo confused anout wether to go to a birth centre or my local hospital. good points about both are:

birth centre:
much more personal 121 with midwife,
natural,
birth pool,
en suite room for partner to stay,
aftercare much better and they teach breastfeeding.

bad thing is if I need an epidural or anything goes wrong ill have to go royal london hospitalwhich isnt that good....

hospital benefits:
its closer
it deals better with medical priblems
its cleaner then Royal london hospital...

please let me know of your experiences

thank you

[mamadiva]

I didn't have a choice here but would be far too scared to go to a centre without proper medical on hand, probably just as well because I ahd to get an ECS when DS nearly died 16 hours into labour.

I do know someone who went a midwife led unit which was quite far away from hospital and she had to go to hospital in the end up for an ECS too because her DD was stuck but they said it couldv'e caused damage if she'd have been 5 minutes later but like I say it is quite far away.
Her DD does have a very odd shaped head because of it though had to wear a thing in bed cant rememeber what i was though was like a helmet.

[igivein]

In my area there is a m/w led birth centre (sounds same idea as yours) or hospital maternity unit in next town. I had to go to hospital for cs, but then transferred to m/w led unit for aftercare, to get b/f established etc. It seemed like the best of both worlds to me. Might this be an option for you?

[Aubergenie]

I know which birth centre you're talking about, and they can blue light you to the Royal London in 10 mins. Apparently they've only transferred a very small number of women who have decided that they want an epidural (but if that was the case, you might have to wait for much longer as they don't count that as a priority). That suggests to me that the natural/water approach means that you are less likely to need one. The midwives there are very experiences and fully trained in resuscitation techniques etc. Personally, I'd give my eye teeth to be able to deliver there as it's lovely and I like the approach, but you do need to be happy with the Royal London too as (I think) about 1 in 7 women do end up transferring. Have you been on the RL tour?

I was going to go there, but got rejected at 36 weeks because my pregnancy was no longer classed as low risk, so I was stuck at my local hospital which I wasn't very happy with and then had a mad last minute rush to change hospitals which was quite stressful, so if you do decide to go with the birth centre, make sure you have a back-up plan in case it doesn't work out.

Alternatively, some hopitals have midwife-led centres in them. That way you get the more hands-off approach but have the security of knowing that help is close at hand if you need it. Could that be a compromise that you would feel more comfortable with?

[Flibbertyjibbet]

Natural vs not natural? The choice isn't really yours in the end.

My 'not natural' birth was for a 9lb transverse baby.

Why didn't you put the title 'birthing centre or hospital?'

I didn't have a choice but would choose hospital for your first, in my case ds1 would have resulted in a transfer to the hospital (ds1 in distress, ventouse delivery) and ds2 we knew was breech so no option.

If you would rather just be at one place and stay there then hospital seems a good bet. If all goes well then you will be out within 24 hours. If it doesn't go well then you would have been transferred there anyway.

If however you can take the risk of having to get up and out and into an ambulance when say fully dilated, and the added stress of transferring to a hospital knowing that something is wrong....

[LadyGibrill]

Cheers guys,

Aubergene i was gonna go Barkantine birth centre its bran new near Canary whalf and looks and sounds wonderfull.

no a few people that have had graet births there will def check out the hospital...

see i could go my norm hospital in fear of something going wrong but then i could be totally ok n would be sad that i didnt have the experience i wanted..

my main worry is if i decide i need an epidural cause i cant taje teh pain but most of my friends even the ones who wanted drgs went natural due to unforseen circumstances and all did ok one pal just had her 1st baby was in labour for 4days had 9lbs baby and she is great

its so confusing

[Tittybangbang]

If you go to a birth centre you'll get one to one care in an environment which is geared to you having a normal birth. You won't have immediate access to an epidural, but then you're less likely to need one if you go there as you'll be having one to one care.

If you go to hospital you have quicker access to epidural anaesthesia, but then you might be more likely to need it in that environment because of the lower likelyhood of one to one care from a midwife who's skilled in supporting normal, physiological birth and the higher likelyhood of spending your labour on your back on the bed. This may not be true of the particular hospital you mention, but it is certainly true of our local CLU - hence the reason so many low risk women round my way choose to go to the birth centre instead - they want a 'normal', rather than a 'natural' birth, ie no forceps/ventouse/episiotomy etc, and think they're more likely to achieve this in a midwife led unit.

Re: safety - ask your midwife how safe she thinks the birth centre is compared to the hospital. Ask her if she'd be happy to have her own baby there. You might find her answer helpful.

Midwives see a lot of births - and the majority are fine with the idea of first time mums birthing at home or in free standing birth centres.