Allowing 8 year old to see birth of her baby sibling?

[hibbledibble]

I'm pregnant and my eldest DC has expressed that she would like to be there for the delivery.

All my previous deliveries have been straightforward, and I have coped well with the pain.

This time I'm planning a home birth, and the midwives are not opposed to her being there. They have said it is up to us.

This is definitely our last baby too, so her last chance to see a sibling being born.

I'm not sure if the idea is entirely crazy, or a wonderful thing to do.

Aibu to let her see the birth? As it is a home birth she can go to her room and read if she finds it too much.

I should think it would be a great experience for her. Children often watch as their pet gives birth, apparently, and are fascinated not traumatised! I think it would make her feel very grown up, and bring her closer to both you and her new baby sibling.

Ignorance is bliss. Knowledge is power. It's ok my child will be empowered and yours blissful. See, it's win win

It's OK, everyone. We can shut down Mumsnet, the internet, and all academic research. @Bashun has the answer.

Who'd have thunk that the answer to life, the universe, and everything would be so simple?

Gosh.

@user1471426142 it took a while yes and a fee days in icu and 2 blood transfusions. I'm still suffering from a very poor immune system 19 months later but I still wouldn't change it for the world.

I am still a massive advocate for home births if it is not contra-indicated. It was honestly a lovely experience. The aftermath not so much

What a load of stupid, unjustified, rambling, cretinous, irrelevant, irritating bullshit

Your responses to people you disagree with are becoming more vile aren't they?

(Blush) compliment accepted. You have a blissful day. 😇

Gorgon I think it’s a real shame that you feel this way.

My daughters were most definitely not traumatised by watching the birth of their sister. They were well prepared by myself for what to expect and always had the option to come and go as they wished.

Not all experiences of child birth are traumatic at all. Even when there is blood and gore.

I have come across a good few midwives and colleagues who said that they decided to train after seeing the birth of a sibling as a child themselves.

Many of the posts on this thread concern me by portraying birth to be some sort of terrible experience all the time and this is often not the case. We need to support women and be positive about birth, sometimes we don’t know the damage we cause by being negative to women about birth. It can have such a detrimental impact and completely alter a woman’s perceptions and experiences of child birth.

Nobody is saying it's a terrible experience all the time, but it doesn't always go smoothly. Also some of us just don't understand the reasoning behind wanting a child there. The kids can still bond after the birth! Also the OP's last update is relevant here.

I think as long as she's properly prepared she'll be fine. There is a lovely picture book called "Our Baby" I think about a homebirth (the only children's book I know that doesn't show birth as always happening in hospital) which may be a bit young for your dd but I think it's lovely and am pretty sure my dd still wanted to listen to it at bedtime at 8 yrs.
I think watching obem is probably not the best idea as it's not a good portrayal of natural births. And tbf every birth is so different and unique whatever she watches may just confuse her.

As a midwife myself I’m fully aware it doesn’t always go smoothly. I also see the amount of women who come into the childbirthing world terrified and afraid and sadly having no belief that they are able to birth their babies without something awful happening.

Women are amazing, I am in awe of them every day for their strength and resilience. I believe OP may still find stories from women who have had experience in this matter useful, after all her and her daughter don’t need to decide right now what they would like to do.

Social media and frightening stories have a lot to answer for in the maternity world today. Mindset has such a big part to play in how a women copes with her pregnancy, labour and as a new mother.

That would be really fucking weird, as is watching water birth videos with your 6 year old son.

Some people are into weird shit though......

You know her, if you think she will cope with it, what an amazing experience. But I think she needs an adult with her, not your partner as you are his priority. Do you have a friend or family member who can be responsible and can take her away from the situation if it becomes necessary, they need to monitor her closely, answer questions and make the decision to say ok that's enough.

Home birth. 13 year old boy and 5 year old girl at home too. DS1 wasn't bothered by it but immediately ran down when heard baby was out. DD was brilliant and chatty to midwives.

Towards end it was a bit distressing as stuck in transition and pushing for nearly 2 hours but she took herself off upstairs and big brother reassured her.

We said I would be in pain, but it's 'good' pain. Midwives were great at explaining.

DH was very uncomfortable at first with how they would cope, but we all look back with good memories. Newborn cuddles with family just after birth

@Mayble088 why do you assume that because I don't think it's right for children to be present at a birth, that means I (or anyone else) have a negative view of birth or see it as necessarily traumatic ?

I don't.

I gave birth relatively easily.

My mum did a huge amount to make me not scared and, throughout my life, reassured me that childbirth was not a horrific experience.

There was and is no need for me to actually endure being present at my younger siblings' births in order for her to tell me that. Instead we talked to each other.

That would be really fucking weird, as is watching water birth videos with your 6 year old son.Some people are into weird shit though

Do you realise that others may find your view on this to be weird?
Birth isn't 'weird shit*
Children seeing a baby being born isn't 'weird shit'
Children these days see lots of weird shit and have parents who don't even monitor what they see.
Watching their sibling being born, if they want to, and being properly prepared for that is not weird at all.
I think those who find this such a horrific idea are the ones with the issues. Issues that they pass on to their children.

Hear hear GorgonLondon

You'd swear we'd just arrived from the dark ages the way some posters here are talking.

Before having my 3rd I'd say if she wanted to be there let her. But after my 3rd baby I'd say no. No labour is the same and you never know if any problems will occur till they happen.

All my labours have been straight forward, 1st was a long labour of 54 hours
2nd was 5 and half hours
3rd was just under 3 hours.

After my 3rd the midwives couldn't stop my bleeding, it took at least 2 hours before doctors realised a bit of placenta was stuck. From the moment I had my baby till I was out of surgery I was bleeding for just over 6 hours and lost a total of 3.2 litres of blood. I was told I was very lucky to be here as no-one thought I was going to make it.

I'm not trying to scare you but I don't think any 8 year shoulf be there in case anything happens.

I think it would be lovely for her to be a part of it and i would be happy, in principle for siblings to be there if they wanted to be.

I would talk to her and explain that I was happy for her to be there, but that after her reaction to her sisters injections, I was a bit worried that she mIght get upset because whilst it’s lovely birthing a baby, it’s also very painful, that you might scream, cry and that’s might not be nice for her to see. Then I’d take it from there, if she still wants to I’d ask if she wanted to watch some birth videos first or not. I wouldn’t, I’m a bit squeamish with stuff on screen, but totally fine with it in reality.

It’s very different seeing you little sister being held down, crying and having injections, than seeing your adult mum give birth. I wouldn’t read too much into that.

However, YOU need to be as relaxed as possible and if YOU will be worried about her then you should say no. You need to put the ‘best’ delivery of your baby first.

@Gottagetmoving Birth isn't 'weird shit

Well, of course it is. It involves one human being delivering a brand new life into the world via an extremely challenging physical process.

It is one of the most profound, overwhelming and primal experiences that a person can have.

It also carries a nontrivial risk of death or serious injury to both the mother and the baby, a high likelihood of intense pain, and a certainty of a lot of bodily fluids and exposing the most intimate parts of yourself, from the inside of your vagina to your anus, depending on position and so on.

It is among the very weirdest of the weird shit that happens in our lives.

Oh, and by the way, saying that anyone who disagrees with you 'has issues that they pass on to their children' is a laughable attempt at an ad hominem that would be deeply insulting if anyone took it seriously.

GorgonLondon

Your view on the process of giving birth is very odd.
The way you describe it makes me wonder why anyone would do it more than once never mind expect anyone to be present with the one giving birth!
It's sad the way we have become so far removed from being human that we approach a natural process as something so horrifying. There is nothing weird about birth.

The way we live now and our priorities can be viewed as weird, as can our fears of what are basically perfectly natural life events.
Your responses only confirm my opinion that those so opposed to a child, well prepared to watch their sibling being born, do have some serious issues.

Oh dear, resorting to personal attacks again. It's still not working, you know. Rather than continually attempting to armchair diagnose anyone who disagrees with you as being mentally ill, why not address any of the points in my post?

You know - try picking out the bits that you think are incorrect and respond to them. Like this:

we have become so far removed from being human

Could you have a go at explaining what you mean by that?

In what way are we 'so far removed from being human'?

Lots of things are 'perfectly natural' and also 'horrifying', incidentally. They're not antonyms. I'm sure you could manage to think of some examples.

Mine was not a personal attack unlike yours....

What a load of stupid, unjustified, rambling, cretinous, irrelevant, irritating bullshit

Having 'issues' is not mental illness so your accusation that I suggested anyone had mental illness is preposterous.
Being removed from being human, although not a perfect description, just means we've lost sight of what is natural and normal.
I spoke to my sister this morning. She used to be a district midwife in a country area and dealt with lots of home births for the farming communities. I asked her whether there had ever been children present at any births.
She said that had happened a few times. It was considered normal to them. She also said it was a totally different experience to when she delivered babies in a city maternity hospital.
The women in the country area approached childbirth far more in a far more relaxed way and handled Labour much better than women brought up in the city who were far more anxious and needed more pain relief.
I wouldn't suggest for one minute everyone should want their children to be present...but for others to say it's wrong is just ridiculous.

Most people where I live have their other children at the births.

I was looking after my niece at sil's 2nd birth and niece didn't want to stop watching tv!

"Come on, the baby is coming out!"

"Nooooo this is the good bit!"

Being removed from being human, although not a perfect description, just means we've lost sight of what is natural and normal

What is natural and normal is for about 1 in 20 women to die in childbirth during their lifetime.

How tragic that we've lost touch with that.

I'd be one of them

This thread has been posted on Pretty52, just FYI.

Also @GorgonLondon childbirth safety has increased massively with the advent of handwashing, development of medications to control bleeding/eclampsia/infection, and safe birth settings. Your statistics aren't applicable to the UK, nor to a low risk woman with an uncomplicated obstetric history. Most recent stats from MBRACCE is 9 maternal deaths per 100,000 births - which is approx 72 per ~800,000 births for the period they reviewed.

Which is 72 too many, but not 1 in 20 as you state. Scaremongering helps no-one.

Ref: www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/downloads/files/mbrrace-uk/reports/MBRRACE-UK%20Maternal%20Report%202017%20-%20Lay%20Summary.pdf