Home Birth

[Gabriella93]

Hey! I'm curious to find out if anyone on here has had a home birth and how it worked? I would love a home birth but my house is pretty small and there is carpets all down stairs, I'm guessing it could get messy . I would happily do it in the bath but is that going to work? So I guess my question is, how did you give birth at home and what were the logistics of it? Haha x

I agree with aroundtheworld on safety. For second and above home births have been shown to be safer than hospital births. I had 2 dedicated midwives at home and you are lucky if you get 1 dedicated midwife in hospital as they are covering a lot more women.

My second was also born in 11 minutes. Luckily the home birth team were already prepped and arrived just on time. I would never have made it to hospital anyway.

In addition he was born with the chord around his neck (as around 30% are) and needed resuscitation. The midwifes at home followed the same proceedure that would have been followed in hospital and he was fine.

The outcome would however have been bad if I had booked a hospital birth and ended up giving birth on route with no midwife support.

We had Chinese take away delivered and eating within 90mins of ds2's birth.

This sounds amazing.

I gave birth on my bed with no mess at all. The midwives just put a big padded covering down.

Best birthing experience I've ever had. Very relaxed and also lovely for my other 2 DC to be able to come and say hello to their new brother as soon as I was ready.

I wanted a home birth for my first. I had a really really long labour and I needed to transfer in the end but absolutely no regrets it was wonderful.

i had a birth pool at home which was really good. we had plastic shower curtains down. you also need to consider somewhere to lie down to be examined/stitches/ in my case catheter since the baby was blocking me emptying my bladder. i used a sofa covered inco pads but there was no mess.

Babdoc appears on every single one of these threads without fail. the cochrane review found home birth is very safe, especially for low risk women. I am planning another home birth for no2. I am under 10 mins drive to the hospital and I can tell you that transferring was no drama at all. the ambulance came and scooped me up. all very calm.

the midwives are also very cautious and dont wait if things look like they are not progressing as they should. I ran out of steam after 3 days and nights of labour. my DS was in a really awkward position and my labour stalled at 8cms. but i loved being at home. it was so chilled and private. I am genuinely excited about doing it again.

@Babdoc

The most important thing is not whether you make a mess of your carpets, for goodness’ sake! What is your plan for dealing with an unexpected emergency such as a massive intrapartum haemorrhage? Cord prolapse? Severe fetal distress? Baby needing more complex resuscitation than midwives can provide? Transfer time to hospital, possibly during rush hour with gridlocked traffic? No labour is “low risk” except in retrospect. In my 36 years as a hospital anaesthetist I saw many mothers and babies who only survived because I, the obstetricians, and the paed crash team were all available on site immediately for any category one incidents. My own second baby would have died as a home birth. She was a full term “low risk” normal labour - but arrived with an Apgar score of 1, a barely perceptible heartbeat needing intracardiac adrenaline, multi focal seizures needing 3 different anticonvulsants, unable to breathe for ten hours, needing intubated and ventilated, and spent a week in ITU with a brain haemorrhage and hemiplegia. Midwives could not provide any of what the paed crash team and NICU consultants did. DD graduated uni, and has no residual paralysis or brain damage. As I said - she would have died at home. Unless you live minutes from a hospital obstetric unit, I’d think twice about the risks you are asking your baby to take. Why not deliver in hospital, then take an immediate discharge - best of both worlds? You’ll be back home before you know it, there’s no mess to clear up, and you and baby will be safe!

@Babdoc talking actual sense here. My first was fast but I'm going to do my best to get myself into hospital so that my baby can have proper care/ medical intervention even with the smallest chance she may need it.

Babdoc has raised the issue of safety's, which is obviously of paramount importance.

I did a lot of research into this and recommend anyone considering a home birth do the same. I found that many issues stem from being in a high stress environment. This is what happened in my first labour. Being at home allows the oxytocin to do it's job more effectively for many people as they feel more relaxed. I also found that for lots of common problems the midwives at home would be following exactly the same procedures as would be applied in hospital. I was told by a consultant that due to dd2's large abdominal circumference I would have a higher than average risk of shoulder dystocia. When I investigated this I found that actually for this issue outcomes for home birth are better than for hospital births.

The other issue is proximity to an emergency unit. I am less than 10 mins by blue light, so I figured that was ok.

It's also interesting what Tootletum says about being told not to get in the pool. I was told to hop on in before the first midwife even arrived and Dd2 popped out before the second midwife got there. This was with the specialist home birth team though so maybe different policies.

Sorry I didn't mean to be crass and ignore Babdoc's experience. But I do feel that the intense medicalisation of birth can contribute to poorer outcomes and experiences. That was definitely the case for my first daughter's birth. If I had stayed at home and let nature take it's course her birth would have been a very different experience.

I had a home birth with DS, now 13. Loved it. No mess - we bought a birth pool (although I didn't deliver in it because we couldn't get it hot and deep enough) and put some shower curtains and towels down, and the midwives whisked everything away afterwards. It was a lovely calm experience, full of laughter. My midwives were incredibly supportive of the whole thing, even when DS decided to appear three weeks early and before I'd had my home visit.

@Babdoc you have basically vocalise my concerns. I have a sister who is a nurser who explained the numerous things that can go wrong even though in am 10 minutes from the hospital. 10 minutes is a long time when your baby isnt breathing. I guess I am undecided as my birth was traumatic mentally (52 hours, no pain relief, midwife may as well have been a statue in the corner). I had horrific flashbacks for weeks where I would wake in the night screaming and seeing things. I am trying to do all I can to keep calm this time as my stress levels were through the roof last time. But then is the main thing not safety as opposed to the mental scarring that I could experience again? It's a chance to take, a big chance. I dont know. An ideal birth would be a home one but births dont go by ideals.

@1point21gigawatts I was with the home birth team too, but in my city it's brand new as a dedicated team, and the take up is so low that they're pretty much making up policies from scratch, certainly seems like it.
I don't really like scaremongering about birth but I did get very anxious for various reasons (unrelated to birth itself), so maybe that's why hospital/birth unit worked for me. Also, I did get discharged within 2 hours so it really did feel like the best of both worlds!! It's worth remembering that there's often no reason to be put on the ward at all, and that's the bit I absolutely hate. I have never really got over the first night with my second child, it was too hard being alone with a child I had been told was likely to have ongoing problems. There was however no treatment and absolutely no point sitting around waiting for the registrar to confirm there was a problem - took 4 months to get the referral, there was FA he could do other than observe the same defect we could all see. I'll never get that night back, which I could have spent talking to my husband in my own bed, coming to terms with our new reality, and figuring out a name (weirdly still a sticking point 5 years later). Instead I was left alone with Google which of course told me my DS would die (bollocks obviously). 😭

I gave birth to DS3 in my living room in front of the fire. We had a few plastic sheets, the sort that decorators use, on the floor and over the sofa - there was no mess.

As for safety, I did my research very thoroughly and my midwife was satisfied that I was about as low risk as it was possible to be, given my obstetric history and totally normal pregnancy. In fact it was my midwife who suggested I have a home birth.

It was one of the best experiences of my life.

I've had two home births. Both considerably safer than the underfunded and understaffed local hospital where I'd been neglected to a dangerous degree in my previous pregnancy .

By all means everyone should consider safety, but the tone that is often taken suggesting home birthers are stupid or haven't considered things carefully is utterly offensive.

I had one on my bed ( making up the bed in layers of shower curtain, sheet, shower curtain, sheet meant the top two layers could be pulled off shortly after birth with me just moving and not having to get out of bed) and the other next to the birthing pool downstairs.

The 1-to-1 and then 2-to-1 care offered by the home birth midwives was amazing.

Carpeted small messy house here. Didn't phase the midwives, I had 5 here at one point with students and shift changeover, no mess, we used cheap shower curtains. It was lovely

I’d recommend talking it through with your local homebirth team, rather than trying to assess risks on the internet.

DH was adamantly against a homebirth until he had talked through the emergency procedures, and been convinced that the team were highly risk averse. They explained the range of situations that they would transfer to hospital, the assessments of suitability prior to labour and the fact that the ambulance service had to sign off as well. There had to be an ambulance available to me, on the night, no inconvenient road works etc.

While the labour was more painful and intense than my hospital births, it was a great experience. I was very calm. The midwives were amazing. It was lovely to get into my own bed afterwards and have my dh with me rather than strangers. It was still labour so I don’t want to make it sound easier than it was, but I have lovely memories of it. My older dd slept through it all, came into our bedroom for her cuddles and found a new baby in the cot. Love at first sight.

The aftercare from the midwives was fantastic too.

I had my first baby in a GP community unit and my 2nd and 3rd at home - more than 30 years ago now. It was brilliant! I had a very supportive GP who came out for the births.

One of the best things about a home birth is that you always get very experienced midwives looking after you so I found the atmosphere very calm and peaceful. I was a bit worried about the mess and joked that at least our bedroom carpet was red, but, as PPs have said, the midwives put down lots of pads everywhere etc and there was no mess at all. After my second was born I went to have a bath and when I got back to the bedroom my midwives had put clean sheets on the bed ready for me and baby to snuggle into.

We only lived about 5 minutes from our maternity hospital so I suppose I had that as a back up but I didn't think about it particularly. My midwife called my GP when I went into 2nd stage and she came out so she was there when the baby actually arrived. My third did stop breathing after birth but the MW and GP calmly produced a small oxygen tank from somewhere and gave her a few puffs and all was well.

You also have the added benefit of having the same midwives with you throughout labour rather than having to deal with shift changeovers part way through!

@99victoria We only lived about 5 minutes from our maternity hospital so I suppose I had that as a back up but I didn't think about it particularly

But surely you do have to think about it particularly? 5 mins is a long time for a baby not to be breathing or need medical assistance, or a mother to be haemorrhaging. Also it wouldn't be 5 mins by the time you'd got in the car and found your way to the correct place in a hospital.

@chubbyhotchoc that sort of thing is pretty much all I think of when discussing home birth with my DH. Its literally the whole point of our discussions. I kind of haven't given much thought to the logistics of keeping the place clean or how to get the water into the pool.

Maybe its just me. Maybe I am too much of a worrier for a home birth.

@SqidgeBum I just wouldn't even consider it. You've only got to watch one born every minute and see how many times babies come out not breathing or they get stuck and how quickly there's a team working on them. For me, my 'experience' and how comfortable I am in my surroundings comes last before my baby's health and my own.

Thank you for starting this thread, OP!

I'm 38+5 weeks pregnant with DC2 and I've planned a home birth but feeling on the fence about it and wondering if I'll decide to go to the birth centre (MLU) when it comes to it. But I wanted to plan for a home birth to keep it as an option. This thread is helping me to feel positive about the prospect! I've got my home birth kit from the midwives and hired a birthing pool.

I have considered the risks very carefully and have decided that they are low, I will have two midwives to myself (unlike in hospital where you can be lucky if the midwife actually checks on you 🙄) and we will have a very low threshold for transferring in if there are any concerns.

PS Traumatic birth experience with DC1 which was mainly due to treatment by hospital midwife, hence wanting to be at home this time.

After listening to the hospital birth stories of my friends, I was actually really scared of giving birth in a hospital - so many of them had really bad experiences that left them having terrifying flashbacks and struggling to cope with the aftermath. And I do think it's quite telling that when people tell stories of their hospital births, they often end "...and I/my baby would have died if we'd been at home" whereas these threads aren't full of parents talking about much they regret their choice to have a home birth and warning others against repeating their mistakes.

I had a very easy and straightforward home birth with my first baby, but I strongly suspect that if I'd been in hospital the baby would have been distressed and I'd have needed forceps/a ceasarian to get her out safely.

Homebirth with DC in the bathroom, on my knees hanging onto the side of the bath for support - it was what felt right at the time.
I had vaguely thought that the bathroom would be convenient as it is east to clean and handy for a bath afterwards, but had got the bed ready as well just in case. We had a big piece of plastic sheeting, but I think the midwives had something in their pack as well.
A shower curtain as mentioned upthread sounds a good idea!

With DC1 I had plastic sheeting, but it was slippery on the carpet, which was v unconfortable when I on all fours, braced against the sofa. The midwives brought inco pads and they were much better - they stayed in place, and it was possible to lay a trail when I wanted to mover around the house (ie hide in the bathroom).

Home births for dc3 and dc4 here. You will need a more comfortable area and more space than a bath affords to 'comfortably' give birth, unless you have a massive bath!

Home birth 1 was only 2 hours from beginning to end. As dh was starting to lay covers/pillows etc on the floor and I was sat on the sofa my waters broke and within minutes ds was born - on the sofa, never finished laying the protective covers! Midwives put pads down to try and protect the sofa but it was too late after initial waters going and had to replace the sofa. That was an interesting insurance claim!

Home birth 2 was slightly longer - three hours - and we were sorted in time for it happening. (Laid covers out on the floor ready every night before going to bed and put them to the side to grab quickly in the mornings to be more prepared) All mess contained and removed in a big bag for incineration at the hospital. Midwife number two nearly didn't make it in time either! Both births were so quick we wouldn't have had time to get grandparents out of bed and at our house in time to babysit and to then get me to the hospital in time so that was another reason why I was glad we had planned home births.

In our area there was a window of three weeks before your due date to two weeks after where you could have a planned home birth. Any earlier and it was deemed as premature, any later and deemed as overdue, both situations carry greater risks than the on time window so it was hospital birth outside that time. On first date of the window we picked up a big bag of practically everything that might be necessary for the birth, along with two canisters of gas and air. Family doctor prescribed pethidine (I think, can't remember exactly now) in case I wanted it for pain relief, I got it from the pharmacy. We also picked up oxygen with dc3 but midwives brought it in their cars with dc4 in case it was needed and one said that she (along with some other midwives) keeps extra supplies, anything from absorbent pads to nozzles for gas bottles, in her car when she's on call for a home birth in case they are needed.

My midwives knew exactly what they were doing, most even said they prefer home births. They are professional and great at their jobs and the house was cleaner when they left than when they got there! It is worthwhile having a larger area which you are comfortable in for giving birth, you can move around easier too. A bath is restrictive and you won't necessarily be able to get in and out of it in a hurry when 9 months pregnant, it will need a clean out before you use it to have a clean up afterwards, unless you have elsewhere you can use. Also, the sides are high and make things difficult for midwives.

Two out of my three children were home births. DC1 was a very long, traumatic, upsetting hospital birth. Dc2 and 3 were calm and relaxed and very quick home births. A lot of quiet joking and a very gentle atmosphere, quiet talking whilst I laboured and the MWs were incredibly calm and patient. Both times I got into my pool at 4cm and gave birth within 40 minutes - so full dilation, transition and pushing. Very quick, and a really positive experience after the horrendous experience of DC1.

Both times the MWs were very supportive and positive about my choosing to have a home birth and though we talked through the risks thoroughly, they were very experienced and confident in terms of it being low risk. They had answers for all my “what if” questions and there is actually a lot they can do in emergencies at home.

Only you can decide if it is worth the risk, or what your risk is. In an otherwise healthy mother and baby and low risk pregnancy, there’s no reason not to if you want to. the fact that MWs even offer the service was reassuring to me.