To ask how many women who were classed as overweight when pregnant went on to have a homebirth?

[windchimesabotage]

Im planning to have a home birth. I was a healthy weight before I became pregnant but rapidly piled on weight to where I am now classed as overweight.
My midwife has not seemed too concerned and my baby is not measuring big. My choice to birth at home has been supported by the midwives and nothing about my weight has been brought up apart from that I have been referred for a glucose test.

However I have been reading up about home birth risks and being overweight seems to be an issue? Maybe I should not have been googling it but I am now quite worried about it.

So I just wanted to hear from anyone who was classed as overweight who went on to have a home birth. Or anyone who decided not to have one because of their weight. To get an idea of whether my concerns are well founded or not.
Thanks!!

I had a bmi of 40 when i got pregnant. They were extremely reluctant to let me have the birth i wanted i had to go through a risk team. Sign a disclaimer that i was ignoring their advice and waving my right to blame them if any thing went wrong and then after all that the midwife on the daug could refuse if she wanted.

Any way I said if I developed any health concerns ie bp/diabeties etc then I would concede but as long as i remained healthy then i was going to try. I had a perfect water birth. No complications and a quick labour.

I'm pretty sure they only use your pre pregnant bmi though. A pregnant one would put every one as obese.

they didnt know my pre pregnancy BMI as I didnt realise and get to the doctors until gone 11 weeks. We had just moved house and I had to register so the whole thing took a long time.

11 weeks should still give a reasonably accurate bmi though

I've had 3 x home water births at BMI 40+ - all amazing.

I guess so but as I said I had piled on weight very quickly. I dont have scales in my house or anything but I was wearing size 10 clothes before the pregnancy and I went up around two dress sizes. I was just really nauseous and kept eating to stop that. Thankfully thats all settled down now and I havent put on any more weight, but nor have I lost it.

Have the risks of a homebirth been explained to you? I am fit and healthy and gave birth to DS in hospital with no problem at all. After DD’s extremely easy hospital birth, the umbilical cord split from the placenta, it didn’t come out and I started to haemorrhage. The midwife summoned help and within seconds the room was full of medical staff and it was sorted out. I absolutely dread to think what would have been the outcome had I been at home. Think very carefully about it OP.

I have discussed it with my midwife and due to my experience in hospital she readily agreed it seemed like the best option for me.
I have of course been reading about it which is why I was worried about my weight.
I think all you can do is weigh up the pros and cons and the different risks. If I do not have gestational diabetes I think it still looks like a homebirth would be the least risky option for me.
Of course it may all go wrong but that is not very likely at all given how my last birth went. Maybe it wont progress well and I will end up in hospital because it is taking too long.... that is more likely than haemorrhaging for me (altho there is still of course a very small risk that that may happen) as I have no history of that occurring.

My hospital birth was not easy psychologically and I ended up with brief psychosis and then PND. I almost got put in a mother and baby unit but thankfully began to recover and ended up with community care. Having discussed this with my midwife she and I both thought that a home birth would lessen the chances of this happening again.

Physically the hospital birth was fine, I pushed the baby out unaided and did not bleed heavily, etc no problems with my son at all.

So although there is a risk things could go wrong at home I do feel there is a bigger risk to me in hospital. Unless something is actually picked up about my general health which increases the risk associated with home birth.

I didn't even know that being overweight was a risk factor. It wasn't mentioned to me. Both of my children were born at home uneventfully.

Op when you mention complications like post-partum psychosis, that must have been really difficult. I would be concerned though about taking the advice of a community midwife on it; can you ask a doctor at the unit where you were previously treated for their advice on how best to reduce your risk this time?

I note a trend on various website of community midwives glossing over all sorts of risks and advising women home birth suits them despite not being expert in the various conditions or risks in a woman's history.