Or am I just being over-sensitive because my birth didn't go as well as I hoped

[DuelingFanjo]

I follow the Analytical Armadillo on facebook (yeah, the devil's work yadda yadda) because I like the articles posted about birth and breastfeeding. However this news story about a baby swap (babies both back with their mums now) was posted recently and the first comment is 'all the better reason to homebirth or never let your baby leave your sight'.

I had a hospital birth, didn't even attempt a home birth, and my baby was taken to special care immediately (as were the two babies in the story) and so I am annoyed by the comment which seems to almost put the blame on the mums for not having a home birth.

I do support the choice to homebirth, I would have liked to do so myself but didn't have the confidence. I'm not being unreasonable though to think this is just a shitty naive comment from someone who is either lucky enough to have had a problem free birth or who is particularly naive about different birth experiences?

YANBU, if your baby has to be out of your sight for health reasons then you just have to go with it, if I had gone for a homebirth me and DD would probably not be alive now.

if the mums had a home birth, the babies may have been very ill or worst died.

babies don't go to SBCU for no reason.

I support the choice to homebirth too, but I'm very glad I never had one. Like all of this stuff, for all the good reasons why you should, there's another good reason why you shouldn't - in my case it was the desire to be near medical emergency facilities if things went badly wrong. You could call that lack of confidence or you could call it being practical.

So yes, maybe your child was at risk of being mixed up while in special care. However, if you'd had him/her at home, the fact the baby needed special care at all implies there could have been a greater risk of too-late intervention. So yes - there's a lot of naivety there and over-simplification. Don't let it upset you. People like to see things as black and white.

I think the comment is completely meaningless and irrelevant - even if these two women had attempted home-birth they'd have ended up in hospital and their babies in SCBU.

The women didn't choose to have their babies leave their sight and go to SCBU, so the comment is basically saying 'all the better reason to have babies that don't need SCBU' which is clearly ridiculous.

surely, a good reason for the hospital not to muck up again?

the blame lies with shoddy process at the hospital.

If your baby ended up in scbu, then you have the right to feel 100% confident that you did absolutely the right thing for your baby. Because you really did!

Imagine if you had chosen a homebirth and that specialised care hadn't been available? Rationally you know that that would have been so much worse.

Your hormones are playing silly buggers inside your body and making you think and feel all sorts of things that you wouldn't feel if you hadn't just given birth. It's normal - although why Mother Nature feels the need to do that to us is anyones guess!

I didn't even read the article you linked to because it's irrelevant, and you are probably more than right that it was written by someone who has convinced themselves that they gave birth surrounded by fairies.

Ignore it and do your best to allow yourself to feel irrational while at the same time knowing that you are not really yourself at the moment. And is it any wonder when you look at the beauty that you just made!

Oh, and I hope that you and your lovely baby are both ok now.

Yes I think that person posted before thinking. If you're lucky enough to have a 'normal' hospital birth then the baby also doesn't leave your sight. If the baby leaves your sight, it's because there's a damn good need.

Your baby has the 'ducky' babygro..i love those ones, DD2 has them :)

It's a thoughtless comment, it doesn't even make sense does it? If the babies needed special care they would have ended up there ultimately, home birth or no home birth. Giving birth doesn't make you a nice person or a rational one, I've seen snipey comments about a zillion things to do with birth and parenting, when the vast majority of us presumably are just doing the best we can. Best to ignore the comment I think!

thanks. I don't think my baby would have died had I not been in hospital, I will never know, but I do get more annoyed these days by the almost militant 'home births are so much better' mantra. My mum was quite surprised that I didn't choose a home birth and had my birth gone well I might have considered it with a second or third child.

I didn't have the confidence either. It as as well - I had a very difficult time with DD1, with a lovely PPH to top it all off. Sometimes hospitals are needed.

It was a shame that this meant I was not allowed a home birth second time round because that would have been ideal, DD2's birth was a walk in the park and needed no intervention at all. On the other hand it has to be said that the shower heads in the hospital were the size of dinner plates, water pressure of the Niagara Falls kind and that just-after-delivery shower was the best one I have ever had or ever will have. Worth my taxes any day.

Its got nothing to do with having a home or hospital birth (although a bit trickier to mix up at a hb), some people write really twerpy commments on everything to make a little point. Home birth is lush, yes. Hospital birth can also be lush, yes. Hospital birth=mums happy for babies to be mixed up..err no.

please don't take comments like this to heart. I live in a very homebirth-friendly area, and we also have a cracking midwife-led birth unit in our town. When I was pregnant with DD1 i hoped to quietly pop down to the midwife unit, push out DD, have a few days there being well fed and cared for and pootle home again. I even did a hypno-birthing course.

In the event, I turned out to have placenta praevia and had a massive bleed at 32 weeks. My birth couldn't have ended up being more different from my plans - emergency c-section at 37 weeks.

Several of my friends have had home births and I really can see the appeal and appreciate how good an experience it can be. But imo, essentially a good birth is one that = healthy baby, healthy mum. The article you refer to is just one point of view, nothing more. Don't let it bother you

hear, hear.I always think that people who get all competitive about method of birth must be real losers.

My baby was taken straight to SCBU and I always wanted a hospital birth so that I was in the right place if something went wrong, looks like I was right. I think maybe from your profile our babies were made in the same place. My LO is a IVFWALES baby.

DuellingFanjo - I'm on AA's FB group and I saw the comment on homebirth being protection against baby swaps and I thought it massively insensitive even though I have had a homebirth (which was lovely ). I have also had a hospital induction lasting 4 days (which wasn't funnily enough!) and a homebirth transfer when it became apparent baby had passed mec. in utero (which again was lovely).

Homebirth isn't a magic talisman against things going wrong and neither is hospital birth both have their risks and benefits which alter for each mother/pregnancy/baby.

I think the phrase 'water off a ducks back' might have to be used here. It was an idiot thing to say and was obviously said without reading the article closely or without thought for anyone who might have had to give birth in hospital. Even the Mary Cronk Independent MW extraordinaire might balk at deliberately planning a prem home birth if there was a hospital to birth in!

Hope you are ok and be kind to yourself.

I had a home birth with dd2 (unplanned, as she was in a hurry). We were then whisked off to hospital, where she spent 12 days in SCBU.
A home birth is no guarantee that you won't end up in SCBU, or needing inpatient care.