I had both my babies at home. AMA

[disneylandlover]

Both my babies have been born at home - AMA

@honeymaple okay again - my understanding from the thread is that statistically there IS a greater risk - do you have different statistics?

I'm talking about our trust specifically.

Sorry everyone is jumping on the risks bandwagon. There are always risks with labour and birth, but for some of us, that risk is tiny. I had my first in hospital and second at home - both water births. I had no idea home birth was even an option, first time around. A planned home birth seemed the most likely way to get another water birth. The hospital is less than five minutes away. Literally just down the road, and we could have gone by car if necessary.

interesting thread OP. I'd have loved home births. We prepared for DC1 birth with hypnobirthing with the hope of using the midwifery led unit. Ended up with EMCS after induction and many interventions. DC2 I wanted a hospital vbac but had ELCS as he was unstable lie at 39+ weeks.

I think everyone has their own limit of how much risk they're willing to accept. we didn't want to try homebirth as we're 45 minutes from hospital, but would have gone with the MLU.

I think the idea of a home birth is lovely, and I'm not knocking the OP's experience & choice at all.

I have some friends who successfully delivered at home.

I had 3 straightforward births, very positive experiences, I was lucky. For me, being in hospital contributed to that as I felt safe & secure.

However, the OP's posts on 'statistics' (which she's failed to quote) are misleading. My brother is a consultant obstetrician. The point he makes is when things go wrong in labour, they can do so incredibly quickly, and with catastrophic outcomes.

Clearly in his line of work, he sees the emergencies and challenging deliveries, more than the straightforward ones that don't require a doctor.

The point is, unlike most risk, there's often no way at all to tell what labours will have unexpected catastrophic outcomes. He's spoken of perfectly healthy mothers having a PPH leaving them minutes to get to surgery (it really does not take long for blood loss to lead to shock & death). Of babies being delivered in perfect health, to have breathing difficulties and need rapid resuscitation. Of babies heartbeat decelerating with little notice again requiring a section in minutes - some of these he's had to do in the delivery room not in theatre.

Statistically these events are rare. But if it's you, it's happening 100% to you & your baby, and the consequences are serious. Birth is a major event with a lot of risk. It's sensible to consider this.

for some of us, that risk is tiny.

You've no way of knowing that until you are in the situation though.

It is a normal physiological process.

Normal physiological processes can have adverse and unexpected outcomes.

Thank you for confirming that for everyone.

You're loving people being rude to someone for how they had their baby? What a tool.

That's very brave of you! Yes, the risks are apparently no more than a hospital north for low risk women (but the stats are not that clear because the vast majority of births in hospital and home settings end up with a live birth).

I know where I'd rather be if it all started going wrong.....give me the medical intervention any day!

My question is do you tend to avoid the topic in real life due to judgey weirdos?

Did you have a pool?

Thank you for confirming that for everyone.

It seemed it needed confirming for you, as your post completely ignored the point b saying For uncomplicated pregnancies, birth does not have to be a medical event. It is a normal physiological process

This is very misleading. Uncomplicated pregnancies cannot dictate if a birth will or will not be a medical event. That's the whole point.

Exactly, rare so don't skew the stats....but if things do go wrong you are way better off in a hospital.

*do go wrong you are way better off in a hospital. I've never got the home birth thing, but heck....I was high risk and didn't even want to be in a birthing centre....it was labour ward all the way for me!

Jumping in for the OP. I've had 4 home births with the NHS.

In real life I haven't met any judgey weirdos really. Mumsnet seems to bring them out 🤣
In real life I've randomly met loads of home birthers including midwives and my physio, also people at work and school mums too. It's not that uncommon (except for on Mumsnet where everyone seems to think we all need a Caesarian or we're 'selfish')

I had a birth pool in a box for the first 3. The 4th one arrived before the birth was filled.

Statistically these events are rare. But if it's you, it's happening 100% to you & your baby, and the consequences are serious. Birth is a major event with a lot of risk. It's sensible to consider this.

thank you for putting that so eloquently @EarringsandLipstick

@nowaynotnownotever

You are misrepresenting a lot of the views on this thread.

It's not being weird or judgey to talk honestly about the risks.

It's also possible to hold contrary views side by side eg my point that I think having a home birth sounds lovely and I fully get the appeal, while also being clear about the risks which can be dramatic & catastrophic. And there is no way to know if that might happen

I feel this has become a debate with many different view points. The relevant point of no questioning/little questioning of women who choose midwife led birthing centres is very relevant. I thought and researched long and hard before having my baby at home, second baby and low risk pregnancy. The amount of equipment available to have at home to help should baby require any intervention post birth was incredible. Monitored every 15 minutes and if ANYTHING abnormal had been detected then I would have been transferred straight to hospital which was 5 minutes away. This was in the throws of covid being another big factor for me wanting to be at home as it was rife in hospital at the time. Transfer time from hospital to home was the same as from midwife unit to labour suite due to covid preparation policies at the time. I complete appreciate that although I had a low risk pregnancy all the way this could have changed at birth, however the way any emergency situation would have been handled was completely unaffected by my choice to be at home. I was much calmer and there is plenty of evidence based research to go with labour environment and birthing outcomes. This is a personal choice with many factors which may impact on the decision which is individual to a persons location/risk in pregnancy etc. please be kind people

The best way to engage with the weird and judgey is just to ignore them.They get really annoyed by that too

I had two home births. My first DC was born in hospital and the care I received was absolutely shocking. That was why I opted for a home birth for dc2.

Wouldn't be for me as I am risk averse.

Had my dd in hospital mid morning, home to a lovely roast dinner for 4pm, perfect.

A friend had a home birth and it seemed to be the case that she had two dedicated midwives and they came when she was in fairly early labour*

So she was being monitored and looked after by experienced professionals at a point where most women would be labouring at home alone with nobody and absolutely no idea whether anything was going wrong or not.

Women are often encouraged to stay home for as long as possible with zero monitoring and arrive at hospital at the last possible moment, do we call it dangerous if a woman is at home for 99% of labour with no healthcare professionals then arrives at hospital ready to push? Just a thought!

*This was a few years ago, I don’t have much faith that this would be the case nowadays given the state of everything. Probably aren’t any midwives to attend a home birth :(

It’s VERY interesting that threads about women choosing c-sections for ‘non-medical’ reasons also get heated in a really similar way! Something about women and choice...

The Birthplace UK study proved that home birth in the UK carries no increased risk for mothers and no increased risk for babies in second and subsequent pregnancies (until the fifth) as long as the pregnancy is low risk.

for first babies, there is a slight increased risk of morbidity for the newborn. Mothers need to weigh up that risk when making decisions.

NICE guidelines are that low risk women in second or subsequent pregnancies should be encouraged to birth in out of hospital settings.

I don’t understand the antipathy to home birth. Anecdotes of babies who would have died if a home birth had been planned (almost unheard of as at the slightest complication they'd have been transferred in) and false logic of ‘hospital has to be safer’ do not outweigh large, long term studies.

Yes there are risks to be considered. If something terrible happened there may be ‘what if’s?’ To be asked. The same for any choice of birth. People are taking on a US lefty liberal attitude of ‘but science’ while completely ignoring the actual science which is pretty conclusive.

In the US home birth may be less safe as was shown by the Washington study but it wasn’t a great study so it remains unclear. Birthplace was an excellent study and we have good evidence for safety in the UK although the deteriorating state of the NHS and ambulance service may change the risk profile of all types of birth.

Yes absolutely. Far more support and oversight.

Can I just point out that many hospitals have a shocking record for safeguarding women and babies? Some people on the thread are talking about them like they're beacons of virtue and safety. I do not want to scaremonger but anyone who assumes this about a UK maternity unit is naïve.

In a planned home birth you do at least know you won't be left alone, the midwife had a huge box of tricks you don't have to wait in line for and if things aren't progressing you'll be prioritised into hospital because the home midwife won't want anything happening on her watch (insofar as humanly possible). Sounds quite elite compared to the experience of many women in hospital.

Many women go for VBAC knowing there are risks but they've weighed them up and hope things will go well. It's not so dissimilar.