Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

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:
SisyphusAndTheRockOfUntidiness · 06/07/2020 22:02

If I'd done this, DD & I would certainly both have died. DD, of protracted labour & coming out entirely unresponsive. Me, of a massive PPH half an hour after she was delivered.

Your friend is obviously entitled to do what she thinks is best, it's her body & baby. But I echo PP's comments, it's foolish & dangerous.

Wyntersdiary · 06/07/2020 22:03

also its nieve to think that you will know if something i wrong.. of course you wont you will be in pain -_- all you will be able to feel... is pain, until its too late

ncqtime · 06/07/2020 22:03

@bookmum08

Except for emergency situations I doubt there has ever been a community any where in the world at any time in history that hasn't had some form of local women who are known for being the ones to assist other women in birth. Obviously in modern times that would be trained midwives but in the past it would of been skills passed down through the generations and every woman would of known who to call on when labour starts. A elder wise woman or community matriarch for example. Even in cave times there were probably certain women in the tribe who were the ones who knew what to do and how to assist. Your friend is very silly. Very.
This
BumbleBeee69 · 06/07/2020 22:03

She's just told me she can't be friends with me throughout her pregnancy if I can't support her choice

Let her crack on OP.. as every Mother will attest .... time will tell how the best of plans can develop and very quickly .. good bad and ugly... Flowers

katienana · 06/07/2020 22:03

I would have bled to death if I'd tried this, as I was in hospital I only lost 1.5 litres of blood and the midwife was able to get the placenta out! Even if a healthy baby is delivered things can still go badly wrong. With a homebirth the midwife would have the drugs to help the placenta come away, stop bleeding, skills to repair a tear or graze or recognise what needed attention, able to check baby straight away etc.

I hope she changes her mind.

ramamamadingdong · 06/07/2020 22:03

I absolutely agree with you, OP, but one other thing that occurs to me is what an extraordinary responsibility her partner is taking on. If anything went wrong, he would have to live with knowing that the consequences might have been different if he'd noticed/responded to something that a medical professional would have spotted.

Lollypop4 · 06/07/2020 22:03

Your friend is an idiot.
Knowing what yiu went through, would be enough for anyone to not consider her option.
I developed Pre-eclampsia at 25 weeks..., picked up by my midwife.
The only obvious symptom I had was slight swelling to feet...
At hospital It was shown my protein very, very high And my BP too.
My DD was born at 27weeks.
Hopefully, you're friend will soon realise how selfish she is

Lockdowners · 06/07/2020 22:03

I was low risk too. DD and I would both have died if we hadn’t been in a hospital. It was about 1 minute after doctors realised there was a serious problem that I was whisked off to surgery, given a General Anaesthetic and DD was whipped out and handed to DH 15 mins later.

Having said that, it is really up to your friend not you. You have given her your side and she isn’t listening. Drop the subject.

TheVanguardSix · 06/07/2020 22:03

See how she feels when the reality of pushing out a watermelon hits her. It’s easy to play Earth Mother at 12 weeks with your very first. I am certain her fantasy bubble will burst.

bestbrowsintown · 06/07/2020 22:04

She's a fucking idiot.

I'm sorry that your friend was so insensitive as to tell you this too considering what you just went through.

NotExactlyHappyToHelp · 06/07/2020 22:04

There are so so many people I know who’d be dead if they had attempted this. Me included.

I will never forget running alongside my sisters bed as they frantically wheeled her from the MLU along the whole of the hospital to the consultant lead ward as she was haemorrhaging. The midwives had porters running ahead and holding doors open. If she wasn’t already in a hospital she’d be dead. This was after a blissfully easy and clinically perfect labour with her second.

I couldn’t be supportive of your friend either.

fuckinghellapeacock · 06/07/2020 22:05

She's an ignorant fool. Reckless too. Pre modern medicine 10% of women died in childbirth. This is still the situation in many developing countries. I know someone who's child was born with cerebral palsy following a home birth during which her equally foolish husband though homeopathy rather than an ambulance was required and the midwife refused to stay as they were endangering mother and child.

Twizbe · 06/07/2020 22:05

I suppose she is quite early in her pregnancy. Perhaps as they don more research around his birth happens and what her partner will need to do to help she might change her mind.

FWIW I wouldn't be able to get on bored with this either. I'd have loved a home birth, but I'd have wanted a midwife there at least.

Nartl0ngNow · 06/07/2020 22:05

In absolute awe of your friend! If she has a positive outset and surrounded by people that trust her body can birth light all the thousands of generations before us then she has every chance of having the outcome she wants.
I'm sorry you had such a traumatic birth and it will always influence your decisions but your friend has the right to birth the way she chooses

RhubarbTea · 06/07/2020 22:05

I am all for homebirthing but freebirthing scares me silly. In the past few years a friends relative had her baby die after she had a freebirth. I would never do it.

Feetupteashot · 06/07/2020 22:05

You may have to tell her you are still there for her as a friend but cannot support her decision. She may come back to you

meow1989 · 06/07/2020 22:06

How difficult for you. I think you have made the right choice in raising your concerns clearly.

i would think the midwifery team would consider it a safeguarding concern if she disengaged from 20 weeks.

It sounds incredibly dangerous to have a (planned) birth without medical assistance. I echo pp's comments about her exploring why she feels like this and whether support to address any concerns can be given. Incidentally, is she also anti vax?

FWIW, my ideal was a natural delivery with a puff of gas and air at most (albeit in hospital). What I ended up with was me begging for an admission and pain relief, failure to progress after 24 hours, 2 pulls of the emergency buzzer (by the midwife not me) and an emergency c section at midnight. I go cold thinking of what may have happened to ds (or me) if I had been in a situation where medical intervention was not possible.

Absolutely I am an advocate for women's bodies being theirs and them being able to choose what they do with them. But at what point does it become an ethical issue if goodness forbid the baby is injured or something goes fatally wrong with delivery?

Original poster
whateveryouneed · 06/07/2020 22:06

@Nartl0ngNow you sound like my friend...

OP posts:
carly2803 · 06/07/2020 22:06

my baby and myself would have been dead doing this with the first.

low risk birth too, went wrong very very quickly.

stupid idea, very selfish woman. I'm all for home births but freebirth? god no

FloreanFortescue · 06/07/2020 22:06

Well I had a perfect first pregnancy and ended up as an emergency caesarean.

She's an idiot. We have advances in science did a reason. It usually stops clueless people dying.

carly2803 · 06/07/2020 22:06

my baby and myself would have been dead doing this with the first.

low risk birth too, went wrong very very quickly.

stupid idea, very selfish woman. I'm all for home births but freebirth? god no

randomer · 06/07/2020 22:07

Hilarious, watch and wait.

PyongyangKipperbang · 06/07/2020 22:07

People saying "I/my baby would be dead if I'd done this" can rarely conclude that for sure, as things may have gone differently if they hadn't been in hospital in the first place. Many birth complications are iatrogenic.

I can.

Vasa Previa. FIrst one would have definitely died either at home planned or free birthing. Second may have survived but would have certainly suffered catastrophic blood loss and brain/organ damage.

So despite planning and pushing for home birth, I went into hospital. I am still an advocate of transvaginal doppler scans for all pregnant women to rule this out (if you ask, you can usually get it although you may have to push for it) and C-section if it is found. Medical assistance saves lives.

However, my last (of 6) was a home birth and everything I hoped it would be and would recommend to it to anyone with low risk. I should add I was considered high risk because she was my 6th.....

KnitOnePurl1 · 06/07/2020 22:07

DC1 - age 29, totally healthy normal pregnancy apart from mild swelling - at 40+2 I developed severe pre-eclampsia and had to have an emergency delivery with forceps. He was 9lb 2oz and facing the wrong way. Massive haemorrhage (thankfully he was perfectly healthy)

DC2 - age 32, I was being kept an eye on thanks to the previous PE but this time it was a smooth pregnancy...lovely. Until the placenta didn't detatch and I haemmorhaged again, and had to have it removed under a GA when my baby was an hour or so old. I looked like a literal ghost for about 3 weeks after she was born, none of my body had any colour to it at all.

I couldn't support her choices in any way.

Hawkmoth · 06/07/2020 22:08

My fourth was a planned homebirth but ended up being BBA. Firstly it was terrifying (even after two homebirths). Secondly, I now wonder if my DS has mild CP as he didn't cry after birth and has a raft of issues including retained reflexes. I am angry that the hospital and ambulance didn't take me seriously when I called to say I was in labour. Midwives arrived 20 minutes after and ambulance 45 minutes after, and this was an urban area.

Homebirths are lovely, but I really wouldn't like to do it without backup.