To wince at people who have homebirths?

[TheCatsMeow]

I never used to, I used to say that everyone should have the birth they want and mean it. But my birth went wrong and I ended up with a baby who would have died had it not been for NICU. If we had been at home, he wouldn't have survived and I may not have.

Every time I hear someone say they want a homebirth my head screams "YOU'RE BEING IRRESPONSIBLE". I get visions of myself and my son lying dead. It frightens me and every time I see a woman who is pregnant I think "I hope they both survive". I don't say any of this unless someone asks and then I just say that I ended up with complications so was greatful to not be at home.

But I feel like people are risking themselves and their babies and it makes me uncomfortable. I think IABU but don't know how to deal with my feelings on this. Please don't be harsh.

YANBU I do too

I think there crazy and risking theirs and the baby's life personally

I think that about anyone using the local maternity hospital with their appalling staffing levels and cleanliness record.

I wince a bit too. Had a great first birth in MLU, considered a home birth for 'low risk' DC2 but decided against it in the end. I had massive PPH with no warning at all, and nearly died (collapsed, emergency surgery, several blood transfusions)
I know it is rare that it goes wrong very quickly and in most situations there is plenty of time to transfer, but I really think I would have died if there had not been an emergency cord, a roomful of people to come running and an operating theatre across the corridor.
I support a woman's right to choose for herself though....

Labour with DS1 was 1hr45min. Labour with DS2 was 35min. Should I ever have another, it will be safer for me to plan to stay at home rather than risk the 20min (in zero traffic) journey to the hospital. I understand why you feel this way, but YABU.

I am so sorry to hear you had such a traumatic birth experience but personally I believe that every mother to be has the right to decide where she will be most comfortable and secure to give birth (as long as there are no risks of complications).
I have had both a hospital birth with my first dc and a very unexpected home birth with my second dc who decided that a home birth was for her (I had another hospital birth planned but she was two weeks early). My second dc's birth was 15 minutes start to finish and I delivered her on my bed alone. It was the most intensely wonderful, unexpected experience.
The ambulance driver arrived shortly after and clamped and cut the cord and we were taken to hospital but we were back home within hours.
I really do believe that the more relaxed the mother is in whichever place she feels most secure giving birth (as risk free as humanly possible) with the correct midwife support is the absolute best choice to her and the baby.

That's how I feel lala

I hold hospital 100% responsible for what happened with dd2. they were rude, inattentive, indecisive and pretty much just abandoned ne. had dp not been there I dread to think...

i had all of my children at home. My first labour was long, but uncomplicated, the second and third fast and straightforward. i'm not irresponsible, or taking unnecessary risks. research shows that in a straightforward pregnancy homebirth is as safe as hospital birth. and often leads to less intervention. i'm sorry for your experiences, but YABU.

The great thing about science is we can study things that disprove our gut feelings about things. Humans are crap at accurately assessing risk. There have been a lot of studies into this.

At my ante-natal home visit at 36 weeks the MW explained that she had to go through the circumstances which would mean immediate transfer to hospital. It was very much a case of at the first inkling that something might even be starting to be out of the 'norm' the ambulance would be called.

But I don't think that hospital births and home births are directly comparable. Both carry different risks.

I've had one of each. If I were to have another baby (and low-risk pregnancy) I would not hesitate to have another home birth. My hospital birth was fairly straightforward in the end, but the issues that I did have, I don't believe would have occurred if I'd been at home.

lalalyra me too! Its hard not to say anything sometimes. I worry about my friends when they go for hospital births.

And yy to the additional midwife support-I had 2 midwives with me at all timesifor both my MLU and home births. Very different from how friends describe their hospital births.

I wrote a long reply but my phone died.

Basically, i had my first at home drug, gas and problem free. No issues at all. 6 hour labour. Done.

I had my second in the bc, 3 hrs drug free again, and had major complications relating to retained placenta. It was very serious. It didnt matter that i wasnt at home. I still had to wait until surgery was ready. With my hb i was reassured the time it took to blue light me to hospital if anything went wrong would have been similar to the time to get it ready with people in there if i was there to begin with.

the main difference after for me was that with the hb my dd was healthy in our home with no issues.

My ds was in hospital for a week with me while i was threated where he caught an infection and also had to be treated. At one point they were talking about putting antibios in his forehead! My ds got ill purely because we were in hospital.

Op try not to be judgy because of your own very specific experience. My ds would not have got ill if i hadnt had to be in hospital.

Sadly i have a friend whose baby died during childbirth. The cfm clearly showed distress but noone was monitoring it. At a hb you have 1:1 mw care and regular heartbeat checks that are done properly. Th

Ps i had three mws at my homebirth.

But tbh acc my notes 'all mws (were) in the room' at my bc delivery at the point i was unconscious. which means all those other mothers to be were alone.

"I would think someone having their first baby at home was borderline irresponsible"
Meh. I had my first (and thus far only) at home. I was as low risk as it was humanly possible to be. And in the event, active labour was so short that had we tried to make it to hospital I'd probably have ended up waddling into triage holding her head in! So was definitely the best option for me and all being well, will be the best option this time round as well (currently pg with #2).

People wondering about worst case scenarios seem to be forgetting that at a homebirth, you don't just have 2 randos hanging around! You have 2 qualified midwives, highly trained professionals who have spent several years training so that they know what to do in emergency situations! Homebirth/community midwives also tend to be pretty experienced, not some wet-behind-the-ears newly qualified.
Even in hospital, unless something really REALLY extreme happens (eg placental abruption) it takes a little while to prep for theatre, even for a high priorities/crash section. Even if you transfer in, you're not losing any/much extra time, you'd have to wait a while to go into theatre anyway, whereas if you transfer in you can go straight in.
Plus as lots of people have said, there's the fact that you are so closely monitored at home (not just strapped to a CTG and left to it) that problems are likely to be picked up sooner than in hospital as midwives are so much more tuned in to mother and baby.

There are always going to be people on either side of this argument, with the anecdotes to back them up - everyone's experiences influence how they feel about the whole hospital/home debate. The whole point is that there is no 'one size fits all' - for some people, it would be daft to try and make it into hospital rather than planning to be at home. For others, it would be crazy to attempt a homebirth. The joy of the NHS is that we can choose!

I can see that you are having trouble processing your dc's birth but in the gentlest possible way yabvu and I am offended by the comments calling women who choose to give birth at home irresponsible. I had 1 in hospital and we were repeatedly told to stay at home for far longer than I was comfortable with and then left alone, not monitored and ignored for most of it. There is no benefit to having equipment and doctors readily available if no one is actually monitoring what is going on and picking up on complications in good time - in an ideal world all women would have 1-1 care but that does not actually happen in reality. The safety of my child was the reason I chose to give birth at home the second time around, I wanted to be certain that I would have an experienced midwife with me to monitor my baby and make sure that everything was ok! If there had been any issue at all it would have been noticed far quicker than it would if I was alone in a room at the hospital or on the phone begging them to let me go in. The midwives alert the ambulance service when a woman is giving birth at home so they stay nearby and will bluelight the woman to hospital if there is a problem so they will still get medical assistance if necessary. Some of the posts on here imply that we are selfishly putting our comfort above the safety of our babies when that is so far from the truth.

i think there is a huge misconception that if you are in hospital and need a theatre then it'll happen instantly, it just doesn't work that way. it can 20/30 mins to prep a theatre, so if you are within that time frame of distance from a hospital you really aren't any further from the medical help than anyone else. Also, things very rarely suddenly go massively wrong in labour, there are warning signs and a decent mw will have you transferred in as soon as there are any.

I agree op but then have seen some mums literally nip into hospital, the baby is born in 5 mins and they go home later that day!!

My Sil has had 2 Home births, both were fine with no complications, she is a midwife herself though so think maybe that makes a difference.

Had I not been in hospital then think me and my dd would have died, as it was she was born by emcs and still needed a week in scbu.

Those saying 'what if you need an emergency operation?' - no theatre is prepped, guaranteed empty with scrubbed and ready staff at all times. Even in the most perilous of situations staff have to be called, scrub up etc. For a poorly baby, the paed doctors have to come from elsewhere in the hospital . Nothing is that immediate.

I actually felt that with 1:1 mw care, only minutes from the hospital and the clear evidence that I was less likely to experience a cascade of intervention, I was perfectly safe if not safer at home. I have had 2 home water births that went without a problem and made me feel safe, supported, respected and in control. I any regret these.

This time round I have been advised that both I and the baby may be at greater risk of complications and therefore I plan to give birth in hospital. I have made my own risk assessment each time, taken advice from hcps etc.

My DS1 also would have died had it not been for NICU. I had DS3 at home. Wince away.

I think it is up to the individual so I don't wince. Some people are just supremely confident whereas I was far more cautious and wanted to be in the right place for problems.
I also like hospital because I then had nothing to do except concentrate on the baby, not something that I could do at home.

I have had two hospital deliveries and one hb.

I felt very much like OP about home births. Then DC2 arrived precipitately. From the first sign of actual labour to his arrival was under an hour. We live over an hour from the hospital in traffic (he arrived on a Sunday night, so we got to hospital, just about). So when I went to book in for DC3, the hospital strongly recommended I consider a hb. A planned hb is significantly safer than an emergency hb! In the end I went with a private NHS provider.

The delivery itself could have happened anywhere although I'm glad we weren't in the car in a layby! and because it was a water birth he was a bit lazy breathing, and needed help. Two trained midwives plus a student got him going quickly but they also were very ready to call 999 which would have brought a FRU in four minutes.

Best of all was the recovery - I went straight into my own bed with my own telly and food. No fishbowl for baby, no bathroom sharing, no hospital food, no awkward visiting times. No anxious journey home from hospital either

And it's worth mentioning that the same person did my a/n appointments, bloods, sweeps, labour, delivery, follow up and checkups. She spotted my PND months before anyone else. Continuity of care is easier under the hb team and contributes hugely to wellbeing.

Thinking about it furher, if id have had my ds at home exactly the same thing would have happened with the placenta but there would have been no way id have been left as long before anyone took action. in the bc i kept buzzing for the mw and telling them i was still having vontractions, i couldnt sit up, let alone get up, they had to hold my son to me to breastfeed, i was bleeding a ridiculous amount etc. It wasnt until i collapsed, was lying unconscious in the bathroom and when came round saw blood all over the very white floors asni was heamoraging, that i was transferred and into surgery. If i was at home id have been transferred much sooner.

To those saying you have to prep for theatre and it takes as long to transfer - that's not true in every case. It would take me 20 minutes to transfer to hospital, 30 if an ambulance was called. When everything went wrong in my labour I had a team around my bed, was prepped and in theatre within 10 minutes. I don't know if it's the same everywhere , but my local hospital has two theatres in the delivery suite. Luckily when I needed them, there was a full theatre team just on standby.

I imagine a lot depends on the hospital, like. PP have said.

YANBU. I won't post my story of the birth of my second child which leads me to agree with you OP (scare stories are unfair on mothers-to-be), but I did want to say to all those who are considering their birthing options, our first baby was born in hospital using gas & air only, and was a beautiful water birth and we were out the same day, all healthy and well. Do not be led to believe just because you are in hospital there will automatically be unwanted or unnecessary interventions.