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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Freebirth. Fallen out with my friend. *title edited by MNHQ*

763 replies

whateveryouneed · 06/07/2020 21:23

Friend is 3 months pregnant. We've been friends for around 5 years. Saw her today for the first time in 8 or so weeks. She was asking me about my pregnancy and son's birth. I was honest with her and told her how it went (she already knew a fair bit but not finer details). She said it scared her a bit hearing about my son being born blue and floppy, completely flatlined. He had to be intubated and resuscitated (he's 100% fine and healthy now).

The reason it scared her is because she's planning a freebirth. She wants to give birth in her bathtub at home (rural, about 18 miles from the nearest town, further from nearest hospital). She wants no medical assistance. Just her and her husband.

I told her (fairly firmly) that I think she needs to rethink that idea and that it could be really dangerous. She thinks that because she's not high risk (at the moment), that the chances of something going wrong are minimal. She thinks that if baby is head down that she will be fine.

AIBU to be really scared for her if she goes through with this? She's just told me she can't be friends with me throughout her pregnancy if I can't support her choice.

Not sure what to say or think...

OP posts:
Wolfgirrl · 08/07/2020 13:47

@NameChange30 okay, okay.

It is safest to labour alone and naked in the woods. Despite maternal mortality being highest in countries without adequate medical care, do not let that fool you into thinking medical care is a good thing. Really it is just obsessed doctors, clamouring to wield the forceps and ruin your much-planned experience. And it IS all about the experience, despite those pesky maternal mortality statistics, your body knows what it is doing, and can only do this when surrounded by trees, fairy lights and affirmations being changed by a wood pigeon.

Happy?

NameChange30 · 08/07/2020 13:52

😂
You clearly haven't read my posts but that's not a surprise!

Wolfgirrl · 08/07/2020 13:56

I just dont see why intervention is said with a shudder. They are life saving.

Iwalkinmyclothing · 08/07/2020 14:01

I just dont see why intervention is said with a shudder. They are life saving.

All of them? Always? There is never a pattern of unnecessary interventions which, far from saving life, lead to worse outcomes?

Wolfgirrl · 08/07/2020 14:02

Can you define unnecessary intervention and tell me about one, please?

NameChange30 · 08/07/2020 14:03

I really hate people who deny that these things can happen just because it hasn't happened to them or anyone they know.

Just fuck off.

VenusStarr · 08/07/2020 14:05

I completely agree with you OP. It makes me really anxious reading this. I was my sister's birthing partner along with her partner. Low risk pregnancy, normal labour on a midwife led unit attached to the hospital. My niece was born not breathing and aspirated amniotic fluid. Resuscitation and then she was transferred to a specialist hospital where she was put into an induced coma with her body temperature lowered. My niece was the poorliest baby on the scbu, despite being born at term and a good weight. Luckily she is now a healthy 8 year old, but that experience was completely traumatising for all involved and it became a question of how severely disabled will she be once they got through the 50-50 survival.

If my sister had chosen the midwife led unit in the community, my niece would not be here now. It just isn't worth the risk.

Tootyfilou · 08/07/2020 14:13

I am a midwife... she is an idiot.

MrsNoah2020 · 08/07/2020 14:17

Interventions can create complications that require more interventions, that's the cascade of intervention

That is certainly true. However, medicalised childbirth - though not without risks - is almost infinitely safer than freebirthing. Shoulder dystocia is relatively rare, but complications of labour are not. There is not a "small risk" of hospital intervention: about 50% of planned home births - despite being categorised as low risk - require hospital intervention. By no means all of these are life-threatening emergencies, but plenty are. And it's not just a question of getting the baby out - it's a question of getting the baby out with the minimum of damage to mother and baby.

NameChange30 · 08/07/2020 14:18

"However, medicalised childbirth - though not without risks - is almost infinitely safer than freebirthing."

No shit Sherlock! Grin

Iwalkinmyclothing · 08/07/2020 14:20

Can you define unnecessary intervention and tell me about one, please?

You need a definition of 'unnecessary intervention'? It's quite a simple concept, isn't it? An intervention which is not needed.

Unnecessary interventions could include induction for reaching a certain point of pregnancy, when there is no evidence to suggest there is any risk to baby or mother of the pregnancy continuing. Inducing labour before the mother's body is 'ready' (unfavourable Bishop score etc) significantly increases the risks of prolonged labour and further intervention, such as forceps delivery or caesarean section.

You may find the WHO's 2018 recommendations as referred to in this Guardian article interesting.

CarlottaValdez · 08/07/2020 14:21

If my sister had chosen the midwife led unit in the community, my niece would not be here now. It just isn't worth the risk.

I’m very sorry for all the stress and glad your niece is safe and well. I don’t understand why you think she wouldn’t have been resuscitated and transferred if she’d been born in a midwife led unit.

MrsNoah2020 · 08/07/2020 14:23

I really hate people who deny that these things can happen just because it hasn't happened to them or anyone they know

A bit rich from the person claiming that shoulder dystocia is something that midwives can deal with in the community. I am not going to go into the techniques for managing obstructed labour without CS, because there is no point freaking out anyone who is reading and pregnant, but suffice it to say that they are intensely painful and often end in a baby with permanent neurological damage, as well as a mother with life changing pelvic injuries.

MrsBobDylan · 08/07/2020 14:24

If this woman's partner is willing to deliver a baby with no medical training/experience that he must be a fucking lunatic.

MrsNoah2020 · 08/07/2020 14:30

@NameChange30

"However, medicalised childbirth - though not without risks - is almost infinitely safer than freebirthing."

No shit Sherlock! Grin

OK good. So next step - why do you think that is? Could it be because of .. ..interventions?

There is fuck all point recognising a complication, unless you can do something about it. That is an intervention. If you don't intervene as the MW, the patient might as well be free-birthing.

Are thresholds for intervention sometimes too low in hospital? Yes. Does it follow that interventions in general do more harm than good? Absolutely not.

NameChange30 · 08/07/2020 14:33

@MrsNoah2020
"A bit rich from the person claiming that shoulder dystocia is something that midwives can deal with in the community."

It's a bit rich how patronising you're being, given your apparent lack of reading comprehension skills. This is what I wrote:

"Shoulder dystocia could still happen in any scenario including at a home birth, midwives are trained to deal with it but there is a small risk that further intervention in hospital is needed."

NameChange30 · 08/07/2020 14:34

"Does it follow that interventions in general do more harm than good?"

Find a post where I said that.
Oh wait....
I didn't.

SamsMumsCateracts · 08/07/2020 14:50

I don't think I'd be able to support that decision if she were my friend. I was very low risk for my first pregnancy and labour. I had been in active labour for a little over two hours when the midwife decided to check on the baby using a doppler, I'm still not sure why, but afterwards she said that it was instinct and experience that told her that something wasn't quite right. I had no idea, being my first labour, I thought things were going the way they were meant to. When she got the doppler on, she suddenly hit a button on the wall and all hell broke loose. Baby's heart rate was so low that it was almost in time with mine. There wasn't time for a normal csection, I was put under a general anaesthetic in the lift on the way up to the theatre suite. DH said that they were sloshing iodine over my bump in the corridor as they ran towards the theatre doors.

This was from a low risk and seemingly normally progressing labour. That midwife literally saved my baby's life. He has some very minor brain damage from the lack of oxygen, but is happy and healthy now. He wouldn't be if I'd had a free birth or even an assisted home birth. From the minute the doppler went on to him being born was seven minutes. we would have never made it to help in time.

I hope she rethinks this reckless and irresponsible decision.

orangesandapplesandpearsohmy · 08/07/2020 15:00

It’s her decision, not one I would make. I would at least have a midwife to hand. But you e said your piece and should just shut up about it now and support her decision.

Wolfgirrl · 08/07/2020 15:03

Gosh @SamsMumsCateracts that must have been very scary, and thank god for your midwife. Yours is (unfortunately) the sort of case us well-meaning fun sponges are talking about when we say even a very low risk pregnancy can have a dangerous birth, and the situation can change in seconds.

My sister had a very low risk pregnancy, everything spot on, and a very easy textbook labour with an 8 pound baby. I asked if she was considering a home birth for a second baby and she said no way. She doesnt understand why anybody would not want all of the medical help immediately available to them, no matter how small the risk.

If I had the choice I would choose a MLU every time, preferably alongside a hospital.

LaurieMarlow · 08/07/2020 15:05

I don’t see why the OP should be supporting a decision she thinks is fundamentally wrong headed.

Wolfgirrl · 08/07/2020 15:09

@LaurieMarlow we have to 'support' every awful decision to be a friend now, didnt you get the memo 🤣🤣

SamsMumsCateracts · 08/07/2020 15:20

That's just it @Wolfgirrl, you can never tell. He had the cord wrapped very tightly around his neck so was being effectively strangled with every contraction. My sister planned a home birth for her second, also very low risk. Her first was a textbook hospital birth in a MLU. I wasn't keen, given my experience, but it was her choice. She also ended up being rushed back into the hospital along with her baby, as he also had the cord around his neck and was very floppy. Thankfully the midwife was on the scene with her, but she nearly missed it, unexpected, very fast labour. If she hadn't been there, Dsis and BIL would have had to deal with a floppy, unresponsive baby on their own. It's a terrifying thought.

ineedaholidaynow · 08/07/2020 15:35

I had a retained placenta, the cord snapped when the midwife pulled on it. So no hint that I could have a complicated birth. Although the medical intervention was grim ,we always refer to it as the James Herriot moment, I wouldn't be here if the consultant hadn't been there. I remember lying there thinking that people used to commonly die of this and still do in countries without good medical care.

I would never recommend a free birth

Blackbear19 · 08/07/2020 15:41

People going on about labouring mothers, at home, planned home birth being transferred to hospital for "no good reason". How can anybody argue they were transferred for no good reason?

The MW must have seen risk she wasn't comfortable with. She either uses professional judgment to seek further help. Or she takes the risk verging on negligence to keep mum at home.

Very few will have very similar situations and opt for different interventions to see what happens.