Is it U to call an ambulance for labour if there is no immediate danger?

[Where4l]

Not first baby.

5-10 minute ride by taxi to the hospital or 15 mins (ish) by bus. No complications and not a high risk pregnancy. Plenty of time to get there by either of the above, as in baby not imminent, early labour but calls an ambulance to get to the hospital.

Unreasonable or not?

DH drove me with DC1, with DC2 he stayed at home with DC1 and I went in a taxi with the independent midwife I’d hired following an awful labour/birth with DC1. I was 7cms by the time I’d called her out and she’d assessed me at home. She said labour would slow down with the faff of getting a taxi and getting to hospital, she was absolutely right. DC2 arrived about 2 hrs after we’d got to hospital, admittedly I felt better for having her with me in the taxi - no doubt the taxi driver did too!

@VaccineSticker

You will probably give birth before an ambulance arrives. Sadly. I wish people can be more sympathetic to the OP. Not everyone has the luxury of having family and friends nearby to help.

Maybe not but they do have access to a phone.

A home birthing friend told me that she had an ambulance on standby in case anything goes wrong. How is this okay then?

I don't regret calling an ambulance for dc2, though if they could have got me a midwife to deliver at home instead they would have done. DC2 was born in the ambulance.

Whether this was normal across the country or just our local hospital in the 80s, but my mum and her friend were forced to accept an ambulance after their waters broke. My mum found it ridiculous - my DF drove her in with me (strong contractions but membranes intact), but with DS her waters burst and she had no contractions and felt very foolish in the ambulance in absolutely no pain. DM also finds it baffling that you are no longer immediately admitted after your waters go or that there is no real postnatal care before discharge. The point I'm trying to make is that women may be getting advice from well-meaning relatives, who are basing it on their experiences 20-40 years ago.

@Poppitt58

This scenario caused me so much stress during my pregnancy. I was 40 minutes in a taxi from the hospital or 1.5 hours on a bus. Hospital wouldn’t accept me until active labour, but taxi wouldn’t transport me in active labour due to the chance of making a mess in the taxi!

I wasn’t keen on sitting on the bench outside in early labour, so I stressed and stressed until I was admitted with high blood pressure.

9 months of stress didn’t give me access to a car sadly. Not sure what I’d have done if I hadn’t become ill with life threatening blood pressure!! My family lived too far away to drive me at short notice.

Do you not know anyone who could drive you? Do you have a partner?

Early as in premature or early as in early stages of on time low risk labour?

Was the situation really that black and white? From the details you've given, it was not appropriate use of an ambulance. Equally, I don't think someone in labour should have to get on the bus. Bus stops at both ends are unlikely to be as 'door to door' as would be required.

I don't believe home birth would have 'an ambulance on standby'!

She probably means that if there is an obstetric emergency an ambulance would be called - my midwife told me that she was at a home birth where the baby went blue and they called an ambulance (the baby was fine in the end..) .

Most home births do not end with emergencies though so it's not a likely outcome.

I became seriously unwell, so my predicament was solved.

But….. how does a woman, in active labour (not high risk) get to hospital to receive much needed pain relief, when they have no transport and the local taxi service won’t take them?

Do they need to request the midwife to come to them until it becomes an emergency at which point they get the ambulance?

When I was in labour and on the phone to the midwife she asked me if my husband would be home in the next 10 minutes and if not she would call me an ambulance.

I gave birth in London and taxi company was happy to take me in labour - both times I was quite far advanced when I got in the taxi. Second time I gave birth within 30 minutes of getting to hospital.

Oh and no way could a taxi have taken me, my waters were going everywhere. Depends on the situation really.

If it's only 5 mins in a taxi, do they need to know you're in labour in the first place? I'd just call one like I would call a normal cab.

I suppose my waters had gone at home though and I just stuffed some maternity pads in there so I didn't leak in the car! But for a 5-min journey I'd risk it.

@VaccineSticker

A home birthing friend told me that she had an ambulance on standby in case anything goes wrong. How is this okay then?

She definitely did not.

Yeah there's no way they have ambulances sitting waiting on the off-chance something happens during every homebirth. You'll be assigned a category like any other call that comes.

Unless you are there or the mother then butt out

Yep.

I went to hospital on the bus. I wasn’t in active labour, but waters had broken and had meconium in them, so I needed to go in. We lived in central London, and used the car so infrequently that the battery had gone flat (don’t know where XH would have parked it anyway). We walked down to the main road to hail a taxi, but the bus came first. It was Sunday morning, so a very quick trip. I had a black sack with me to sit on in case.

I can imagine, though, that women living in certain places and without access to a car would have no alternative but to call an ambulance.

Should have called a taxi.

JRCALC guidelines (followed by all UK ambulance services) state that if appropriate when we are called to women in normal labour that we can send them on in by own transport/taxi anyway.

I absolutely wouldn't callan ambulance, but then when my labour started I had my husband with me. The hospital was an easy journey in our car and we weren't stressed. If I was scared, alone and in pain then I hope I would have called a taxi, but who knows.

You could be waiting for hours! I’d get a taxi personally.

But….. how does a woman, in active labour (not high risk) get to hospital to receive much needed pain relief, when they have no transport and the local taxi service won’t take them?

The same way they would get anywhere else I suppose. They would need to plan for it. Get a friend of relative to help. If partner doesn't drive then they've fit nine months to learn.

If the situation is a straight forward as that then yes, that's unreasonable. Do you actually know all the facts? maybe there was a valid reason but your friend didn't actually want to discuss it and would rather let you think she was being unreasonable than divulge her private business?