To be fed up of the "home birth is risky" misinformation?

Thank god somebody has said this. I think the high/low risk label for women is a completely meaningless binary that feeds the lack of nuance seen on this thread as it is a concept used to gate keep access to very real medical interventions, types of health professional and settings.

Women's health is done in such a vacuum that doctors or midwives simply don't have the context to meaningfully label a woman 'low risk', particuarly a first-timer.

Then when it all goes Pete Tong they say that 'childbirth is unpredictable' and blame women for not correctly perceiving risk, when it was them who came up with the meaningless false dichotomy in the first place.

i was so traumatised by having my baby in hospital (hostile, abusive midwife who mocked and bullied me and told me I was "fussing about nothing" "silly and stupid" needed the labour accelerating when in fact I was fully dilated) that I never had another child. Had I been brave enough to have another child I would have done my best to have a home birth as I very much doubt that any midwife would behave like this to a woman in her own home. I am sure that bad experiences inform many of the choices for home births. I have several friends who had their second at home without any complications and I really envied them.

This happens because community midwives make home births seem like the ultimate success and going into hospital is somehow a failure. I know this sounds like hyperbole but this what they believe and pass on that belief. It is in the same way that some women are made to feel that formula feeding is in some way a failure.
The whole thing is nuts but so emotive that it can be difficult to rationalise.
My birth plan was: DH to be present, have the baby, ideally in hospital if time to get there, any medical interventions needed.

I just wanted to be where the doctors are. I figured something may not go wrong but if it does I want them close by. It’s undoubtedly more appealing to just be at home, but my priority was having my baby safely and I can’t imagine how it isn’t safer overall to be in hospital.

Maternity payouts ….

and how many fuck ups don’t get to pay out

childbirth is a risky time

midwifery pressures / lack of resources is an absolute scandal

It’s not misinformation. It is risky. That’s why maternal and infant death rates are higher in countries without access to hospital births

This is absolutely crucial to factor in

look at wait times for ambulance / rapid response cars

they are scary

midwife shortages are high, especially for specialties like home birth -

how many have been transferred to hospital because there is not the midwifery cover to provide a safe home birth ?

we don’t have the safe levels of staffing for community home birth teams and emergency response back up when required -

there is a huge gap between ideal and reality and women should be supported to factor that in when doing birth plans - I fear that is not done explicitly enough, maybe as that leave midwives open to complaints about not being choice / pressured to not have home birth etc

One of the midwives sat down with me, sorted out my latch by coming in every 90 minutes or so, gave me advice on mixed feeding which I started at about 6 weeks and showed me various ways of feeding while cosleeping. I think I would have given up much earlier with the complete lack of help on the postnatal ward.

Sometimes I wish I didn't bother posting!

Yes time to the hospital is a factor, but lots of people will be in different positions here.

I haven't personally made any comments about what is riskier, but the stats show that low risk, second time births do have better outcomes at home.

People always seem to forget to consider the risks involved in being in hospital, but not being properly monitored. Which is probably exactly why low risk second time mothers are better off at home, as they're exactly the people who might get overlooked on a ward.

This is the research I referred to:

https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/birthplace/results

🙄

What has the 2 years got to do with the support?

Yes I think it’s tricky to know.

I arrived at hospital at 7-8cm (after being strongly encouraged to spend most of my ‘hospital birth’ labour at home with zero monitoring or healthcare professionals present), baby was soon picked up as being in ‘distress’, I was rushed to theatre, prepped for a section but they managed to get him out with rotational forceps. He was born 40 mins after arriving. It felt very scary, panic, big team of people, rush to theatre etc. but then you speak to friends and it seems like a pretty standard experience.

I don’t know how it would have played out at home. Perhaps I would have been monitored from a much earlier point, and actually been taken to hospital much earlier and it wouldn’t have been so dramatic. Perhaps all the issues wouldn’t have actually happened if I was having planned homebirth and I would have got a straightforward birth.

Obviously I’m not denying there ARE incidents where homebirth would have meant severe consequences. I just mean the type of birth I experienced at hospital seems so standard now that most women feel like ‘I/my baby would have died if it was a homebirth’ when you can’t know that for sure. The hospital environment, monitoring, cascades of intervention can and do mean a lot of ‘emergency’ situations wouldn’t have occurred at home.

And that would probably be improved by employing far more midwives,

No-one serious argues this. At least not for a home birth attended by a fully qualified midwife who can get you to hospital if things are going wrong.

When I gave birth 12 years ago the best research on this showed no greater risk for a home birth for a second birth but an increase in risk for a first birth, from memory it was a doubling of risk.

I am really sad that since I gave birth 7 years ago they have closed the small local birthing units here. They were the perfect happy medium. 4-6 beds, staffed by midwives, calm.and quiet. We were all familiar with them as they were also the locations of midwife appointments and scans. I was transferred to one of these for 24 hours after birth for help with breastfeeding and monitoring after a haemorrhage - I'm not sure I could have managed to feed DS for nearly 2 years without it.

See I agree in that case. Over an hour away from hospital I wouldn’t homebirth and I’ve had two.

I doubt it and live over an hour away from a hospital. I was on the pushing stages of labour, Dr was called then straight into theatre- they put me to sleep to do the c section. I'm so grateful I was surrounded by a full medical team. I think saying home births are less risky is irresponsible

Me too.

An ambulance wouldn’t have saved my baby even though I live less than half a mile from the hospital.
I had 17 medical staff with me including a handful of consultants/surgeons. I think at least 3+ midwives.
They had a stopwatch for how many minutes left to get baby out and someone would shout out the time left every 1 minute or less (something like 3 mins to get into theatre, 3 mins to prep and 3 mins to cut baby out).
So all in all less than 10 mins to save a baby’s life. And honestly the medics sounded worried.

Plus there’s no real reason about why this happened other than ‘fetal distress’ so it’s not like they could have planned for it or that they or I could have prevented it from happening.

Homebirths are safer for the women who are low risk.

Firstly because you get better care for a start. The midwife comes out earlier, a second one joins earlier you are 1-1 and then 2-1. Their eyes always on you they will spot a problem much faster than in hospital sharing a midwife popping in and out. You also get continuity of care, for my second and third I had the same midwife for every appointment so she knew me, she could pick up on signs of me changing having seen me for 7 months rather than some random on delivery ward.

However for some people there will still be an emergency and it would happen hospital home or the moon so yes there is still risk. Your distance from the hospital and so on should all be taken into account when you decide to try a homebirth and you have to be open minded to transfer with a hand up inside you if need be.

My first birth in hospital was horrible constantly told not to come in and that I clearly wasn’t in labour when I ignored them and went in I was already 9cm so would of had a unassisted birth if I had listened to nhs advise that time. Where’s birth two and three I was recommended to homebirth with midwives to come as soon as I said I was in labour in our area the ambulance crew are notified of homebirth in action so as ready as they can be.

It’s a dedicated home birth team so takes nothing away from other women although selfishly anyway it’s not home birthers problem anyway and even if transferred in she will nee those midwifes and get another likely.

This! After my first birth in hospital I ended up with Sepsis, which they staff ignored and told me I was “just tired” for three days afterwards. I nearly died, and this REALLY put me off a hospital birth, so I had a home birth the second time round.

BUT obviously there’s always risks, it wasn’t an unassisted home birth, I had planned for 2 midwives and said if anything started go wrong I was happy to go into hospital. The midwives ended up not being available until 10 minutes before baby arrived, so tbh the home birth still wasn’t without issues and the cord was wrapped around babies neck, so not sure what me or my partner would have done if they hadn’t have gotten there in time, as they obviously knew how to handoe the situation safely. Either way there’s risks, but I do agree the care is substandard here (Midlands) and I’m now not sure whether I’d choose to do a hospital or home birth next time as both were bad in different ways.

It is though. Even the most pro home birth woman i know who elected for home birth with all three of her children ended up in hospital with each one. In my case DD wouldn’t be likely be here and I probably wouldn’t have either.

So I've just read the article. And in no way shape or form am I blaming the mother r.i.p to her and her baby. But she knew she carried strep b through pregnancy. Her other child caught sepsis through it and she also had to have a blood transfusion now I no hormones run high whilst pregnant but have we all lost our common senses the risks were so high its ridiculous

I'm not sure this is accurate. Surely it is more likely that your midwife would have picked up on the problems early on and got you transferred to hospital.