I've had 4 home births AMA

[homebirthAMA]

4 kids, 4 home births AMA.

Mainly because there seems to be lots of misconceptions about home birth on the internet (less so in RL)

Just a preemptive note:
I won't be replying to any offensive attacks (because I have self respect) and I won't be providing endless links for 'evidence' - please do you own homework or ask your midwife for that sort of thing. I can talk about our experiences and viewpoint. :)

I'm so sorry to read your experience, that sounds utterly horrific and I'm baffled that you'd be told to actively fight against what your body was doing!

At a home birth with no vaginal examinations you go with what your body with doing. And in my case (and many many others) a baby just pops out!

I know other women do home birth after CS/multiple c sections (and over 40 personally I wouldn't ever consider a particular issue). From what I've seen on other discussions the concern is about scar rupture which is a small % per scar (0.5% iirc although that might be ood now). I asked my Homebirth mw about this once when she said she'd just come from a vbac- she said personally she didn't worry about them because scar pain is a sign well before rupture and women at home being in tune with their bodies and unmedicated will say clearly when they are not happy and can be transferred in good time for extra monitoring or whatever is needed.

That sounds really hard @BarnacleNora . I've had 5 very different births and I find that I can do it quite easily if left to my own devices but any pressure/monitoring and my labour stops. I had a hellish induction with my youngest where I dilated 2cm on my own in the bath in 30 minutes and then took 4 hours to dilate another 2cm on the drip. It will be elective section all the way in the unlikely event of me being pregnant again. I feel that the risk of home birth is too high for me personally but a highly monitored vaginal birth doesn't work for me.

Yes I have heard so many stories of ‘coaching’ during labour and the pushing phase (whether to push more or push less or wait) leading to bad outcomes.

@homebirthAMA I’ve already had a second. Sadly after first birth DH was even less up for home birth. I would have insisted on a private midwife except by then his work medical insurance covered private birth.

so that was the compromise. I researched three obstetricians and met three before choosing one. She was a pro non intervention births as I could find.

but. It was a long hard road to get pregnant the second time (took IVF and there’s a five year gap between my kids).

so when it rolled around I had a baby measuring big (scans predicted over 11 pounds) and I was 40.

with those two factors the pressure to intervene was huge.

I declined early induction as I really believe the baby needs to gestate as long as it should. We agreed on C section of no labour by 40 weeks.

but that fell on a bank holiday and as it got closer she pushed and pushed to go before.

i was in pre labour all the prior week but the pressure, I feel, stopped things tipping over.

so in the end it was an elective c section she stayed late in the Friday night before the bank holiday weekend to do. She said to me during it ‘i wouldn’t want to be doing this with an anaesthetist i didn’t know’.

i have spine issues so I was grateful that all went smoothly.

through it all I feel I gained an insight into the pressures obstetricians are under.

i had warm and constructive discussions with mine. But after the last one, she sent a letter to my GP and copied me in. I read it on the way back from a massage while having contractions which then stopped as it made my blood run cold.

it was a version of the truth but more or less said I cared so much about physiological birth that was more important to me than whether my baby died. Which was upsetting and untrue.

but with my experience from work I could also see this was a letter written to cover herself, with an eye to any future court case.

in the end obstetricians are held responsible if things do go wrong and mother or baby have serious and outcomes or die.

and the choices they make are not Bly on what drives evidenced based good outcomes but by protecting themselves in a blame based legal culture.

They want to be able to say did everything to follow ‘guidelines’ (eg strongly advised intervention if a baby is measuring big) so that they are protected if there is a court case.

and then it becomes self fulfilling. Not sure my obstetrician had seen the physical ways you can release shoulder dystocia for example. As she ALWAYS advises early induction or c section for big babies.

We need to change the system they operate in to enable them to make choices that aren’t based on fear of blame.

It takes a very strong minded mother to hold out against the pressure that you are out under if you fall outside of guidelines.

i think one answer could be a team
of midwives and obstetricians trained in those methods (and up for it) as you described your home birthing midwives team to be, OP.

ive made my peace with what happened.

one thing I will say about the private system is my post natal
care was AMAZING. Three nights in a quiet private room, lovely food, midwife there within 30 seconds of calling for help. I came home feeling great.

at my six week check up my obstetrician who also works in the NHS explained in the private wing the ratio of midwives to mothers was 1:4. In the NHS it’s 1:27.

so many bad outcomes are created by a simple but appalling lack of resources.

i actually think a system when midwives come to labouring mother at home as standard and then make the decision with you on whether and when to transfer would create much better outcomes for everyone.

@homebirthAMA and @elliejjtiny I'd previously had a lung operation which the consultant was concerned pushing could cause issues with, or cause the other lung to collapse, hence them wanting me to fully dilate and then wait for two hours before pushing to allow baby to do most of the work itself. Thinking about it in the years afterwards this of course makes no sense-the baby can't do any 'work' itself unless my body was pushing it along! And when I was pregnant with my second child (only a year later) they had no concerns at all about my lung and seemed surprised that this had been an issue (different area). So....I don't know. Maybe there was a serious lack of communication or wires crossed between what the consultant wrote in my notes and what the midwives interpreted. But yes, trying not to push when every part of me was desperate to do so was awful! Apparently I should have been given an epidural as standard with those directions (not to push until dilated for two hours) but I was never offered one nor was it ever discussed.

@Flittingaboutagain - bath and food each time!