AIBU- home birth social media support groups are f’ing dangeorus **Content warning - title edited by MNHQ**

[Namechangetimes100]

I’m in a few Fb home birth groups as I was planning to have one til the service got suspended, had an MLU birth instead and was absolutely fine! I’ve not left the group yet (probs should) but some of the advice given is fucking dangerous as hell.

The advice is free birth left right and centre. Birth at home for a pre term (35 week plus) baby, the woman did and the baby needed resus this was met with almost rapturous applause and more recently refuse induction or action for iugr. I mean ffs this advice can kill as well as the doctors = evil mentality.

I do totally believe and support informed consent and I do think that choice isn’t often presented to women in obstetrics and sometimes induction is made to seem like the only choice when it isn’t. I was coerced into induction with a ‘constitutionally small’ baby based on old guidelines so I’m sympathetic to a point to some of these opinions. But to even contemplate birthing a premature baby at home, fgs and a baby measuring under the 3rd centile and dropping and to refuse any sort of medical support in pursuit of the perfect home birth. I just don’t get it.

Any free birth or demanding midwives come out when there’s a national short staffing. It seems like a recipe for disaster.

I totally get my body my choice but seems like playing with fire In some instances to me-aibu?

@KeflavikAirport

Those of you preferring home birth to crappy hospital births, would you go for hospital if the service was properly funded? It doesn't have to be like it is in the UK. Other places fund their hospitals adequately and make it a much more pleasant and safe experience

No. It’s a normal thing, if you have a textbook, low risk pregnancy, to give birth at home with other women (in this case, professional midwives and some family). It’s ideal to be in your own surroundings during and after. To be around your other children and husband. I think it’s vastly preferable. That said, if things go wrong I would go into hospital or if pregnancy was complicated homebirth wouldn’t be an option. I live 10 mins from a hospital though.

@TheOriginalEmu

I am sorry beyond words about what you’ve experienced.

@Lifeisnteasy oh DFOD with your "crunchy mum points" bollocks. This scornful twattiness about women's birth wishes is one of the factors that turns people towards echo chambers like the kind of badly modded groups the OP describes. Why do you assume so many other women are so much more stupid than you, or love their babies so much less?

There are lots of very valid reasons for wanting to avoid a medicalised birth, chief being that when it goes straightforwardly (as it usually does when the mother is low risk) the outcomes are better for mum and baby. It is not some sort of ego boost of badge of honour women are pursuing to the detriment of their babies.

Ugh. Between you and the batshit gibberish from Disobedience I think this thread is now officially a bunfight when it could have been a useful discussion.

@Lifeisnteasy

Would Mn allow me to post the thread here? It’s from years ago & no sign of poster still being around.

All I can say is that poor baby, been failed all around on the brink of starvation. Heartbreaking

@Draineddraineddrained oh DFOD with your DFOD.

If you think a woman that refuses to give formula to a 9 pound 4 month old baby, or a woman who chooses a homebirth with a 44 week breech baby, isn’t doing it for their own ambition then I don’t know if anything will persuade you.

When you commit to having a baby you commit to putting their health before your own wants, to me.

If your hang ups are so bad that you would put your child’s life at risk, you probably shouldn’t be pursuing a pregnancy in the first place.

@Namechangetimes100 it’s a horrific and disturbing read isn’t it. Quite heart breaking to think of this baby clearly starving for months on end.

After having breast is best rammed down your throat I can get how this could happen, not saying it makes it right though.

@Lifeisnteasy

Those are extreme and unusual cases. You said "a lot of women" make their birth and feeding decisions for "crunchy mum points". That is so superior and contemptuous of other mother's I really don't know how you can defend it.

@Lifeisnteasy

Would Mn allow me to post the thread here? It’s from years ago & no sign of poster still being around.

I cant see why not. Plenty of threads reference or link to older / other thread.

Plus you now have me hooked

Here it is

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/breast_and_bottle_feeding/417135-mighty-oaks-from-little-acorns-grow-slow-weight-gain-support

Poster’s 4mo baby weighs 8lbs, and has gained 1lb since birth. Poster refuses to give formula and is outraged that the medical community are concerned about her baby’s failure to grow.

Trigger warning, it’s quite a disturbing read.

@Namechangetimes100

That’s the point *@5keletor* to be truly informed either way, to understand the risks either way and if these groups really believed in informed consent that’s what they’d do, but they don’t it’s shunning medicine over anything

Definitely, I think a lot of the women recommending that particular home birth/free birth group to myself and others thought the admin was qualified, I did too until I joined and read more about the group and saw some of the posts (I left very quickly!).

@Lifeisnteasy

That thread is horrifying. Verylittlecarrot seems to be relishing in her own narrative of being the “hippy earth mother” despite her poor baby. The bit where the baby then gained weight dramatically on actual food should have been a clue but of course was not.

I BF DS until he was 3. I do all the attachment shit but I had a similar situation with my SIL whose baby was on the 0 percentile, failing to thrive and struggling. I think she had PND and persisted in feeding (she had also seemingly misunderstood the hospital advice to feed on demand or every 3 hours and was literally only feeding the boy every 3 hours and using every other method to settle until then although he was a hungry newborn). It was awful to watch and now he’s huge after starting actual food. His birth weight had been good too. It’s very, very upsetting. I found the whole thing traumatic and this thread about effectively starving babies brought it up again!

@Justheretoaskaquestion91 the thing is verylittlecarrot didn’t need to stop breastfeeding, just introduce a bottle or two of formula a day to see if it bulked the baby up a bit. But it’s like she was so desperate to achieve the ‘EBF’ badge that she couldn’t bear to even do that. It makes for shocking reading, the posters cheering her on clearly too polite to point out her baby was malnourished are almost as bad.

The bit where the baby then gained weight dramatically on actual food should have been a clue but of course was not.

The faux surprise that the baby gained dramatically after starting solids is painful. Instead of facing the obvious - it just wasn’t working out for a reason that would never be apparent - the poster just searches for more and more unlikely and complex biological reasons why her breastfeeding couldn’t possibly be to blame. I really feel for any medical professional that had to work with her. It must’ve been agony for them.

@Lifeisnteasy

I have an issue with her attitude of being far more intelligent and well read than her paedatrician, and everyone laughing along like people who don’t do things their way are idiots. It’s v shocking as a read. I can’t imagine a scenario where your child is soooo thin and you just continue.

That thread was a shocking read. She was just so so determined to be right that bf was enough that she didn’t have a supply issue. That poor poor baby and even once gaining like a super star once on solids she refused to see that the baby clearly needed more than just bf for all those months.

I’ve just read it, it’s very hard to get through but that carrot is saying that she doesn’t believe that babies need to be on the same/ similar centile for head, weight and length. Erm yes they do, that’s how you can detect and underweight baby, 2 centiles either way shows proportionality aka a healthy child. Heads are often above length and weight but that’s babies for you.

She didn’t even need to introduce formula, she could have pumped but apparently that gives her clogs, most likely because it’s increasing the supply that baby just isn’t transferring. The baby was 100% living on the let down and the glib refusal and encouragement to keep going is the same ridiculous attitude and behaviour that drove this thread

That thread is proof some women do put their ambitions to be Mother Earth before the health of their child. There is no scenario in which inadequately breastfeeding a malnourished child is better than mix feeding a child of a healthy weight. Being that underweight is a health risk in itself.

Wow that thread is worrying. Must be hard to deal with parents like that. Especially ironic as she talks about doctors not being knowledgeable like her.

I just wanted to add my voice to PPs before me that I think the driving force behind these groups is people scared of the rigidity of obstetricians. I've definitely felt drawn to them during my pregnancy as a source of comfort that my labour and delivery might not be traumatic, when my consultants only talk about risk, stillbirth and tell me what I WILL do (only one midwife so far has mentioned the word consent). I asked if there was any room for discussions around choices (for timing and mode of delivery) and was told in no uncertain terms that anything other than what is in their policy is inviting the risk of stillbirth. It hasn't given me any reassurance, it's made me disengage with any conversations around it until I have to. Otherwise it's just upsetting.

I don't feel overwhelmingly reassured by their years of experience like others do. When clinicians follow hospital policy blindly and without question, that in itself allows for dangerous practice. A decent medic should be able to discuss and weigh up options, using an evidence base and applying it to individual situations/patients. Treating everyone the same based on population data isn't good practice.

I won't be having another homebirth (obv!) as I'm pregnant with twins and who knows how they'll be growing/laying by then. But the experience of this pregnancy has been horrible compared to my first and I'm glad I won't have to do a consultant led one again. I do wish there was some middle ground/room for discussion on options that didn't just push you into binary places of freebirth vs. passively accepting anything without consent.

someone recommended a home birth group to me (one of the main ones, its been mentioned on this thread) and I left really quickly. it seemed very extreme.

I've had one DC and pregnant with 2nd. I did a private hypnobirthing course with my first, prepared for MLU birth, low risk pregnancy, was very into the natural birth world however wouldn't have considered freebirth ever! hone birth maybe but MLU was my preference. in the end I was induced, typical cascade of interventions and ended in EMCS under GA with sepsis post op. although I found the whole experience terrifying, it also showed me how fast things can go wrong. this time I would like to push for an attached MLU vbac (if possible) but with a very low tolerance for c section. currently vbac in the MLU isn't "allowed" and I thought that group could maybe help. having read the posts I think it probably wouldn't help!

And here’s another…

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10379581/Ashley-Graham-gives-birth-twins-home.html

We need the best of both worlds. A quiet, dark relaxing space to help with the hormone cascade required for labour to progress, with monitoring and a delivery suite and NICU if required. Sometimes intervention is necessary. Nature doesn't need every mother and baby to survive childbirth, just most of them. Luckily, we don't accept those odds and have the obstetric care available to make maternal death and stillbirth or neonatal death unusual. It wouldn't have been unusual a hundred years ago, we should never forget that. I wouldn't have a home birth, after a crash section and seeing how quickly things can go wrong, I would be very cautious. I wouldn't want to be further than a couple of minutes from theatre, in case a c-section was required. Things don't go wrong very often, but when they do, it can be catastrophic. I wouldn't want to risk that outcome to have a better labour. I do understand birth trauma, but when your baby nearly died during their birth like mine, you realise it isn't the most important thing. I was traumatised for years, but I'm so glad they made it and intervention made it possible.

I'm in that FB group. I also have a PhD in biomedical sciences and know how to find, read and critique medical and scientific literature and am fairly up to date on the current literature around safety and place-of-birth. FWIW I have seen non-evidenced-based advice given in the group but in general much less than I see given by HCPs. My most recent interaction with a HCP being a case in point : at a recent scan I declined to follow the sonographer's advice and explained that the medical research showed no statistical improvement in outcomes for the baby in my situation. Her response (and to be fair she was polite about it) was "well that's not true". I wasn't sharing my opinion - I was sharing the medical peer-reviewed data. She was sharing her opinion. The issue of course with freebirth of course is that there is very little research on which to base one's decisions. The peer-reviewed data on well-integrated home-birth v hospital is conclusive that home is equally safe for the baby and significantly safer for the mother (which also has knock on benefits to the baby). This was research published just before the pandemic in the Lancet. Obviously that is not the situation now. Supported home-birth services are being cut left right and centre. MLUs are mostly closed or so hard to get into that they might as well be. Hospitals are chronically understaffed and birth partners are not allowed until the very end of labour (Completely contradictory to what the research would suggest is best). Hospital was never the safest place for the majority of women and now it is even less safe than when the research was carried out. Obviously unsupported home-birth has higher risk than supported home-birth. But I was unable to find anything to support the idea that in my circumstances (previous fast homebirth) it would be less safe than hospital risks + the risk of an enroute car-birth. As it happened midwives were available but she was born before they got there. I would not have made it to hospital in time. Being prepared to freebirth if necessary was the safest thing for me. It won't be for everyone. But it really helps to be informed of one's options and to have people to support you, and to call out the blatant misinformation given by HCPs (usually due to ignorance rather than malice). In the group I do see some non-evidenced-based advice given, (I've seen plenty of misinformation on this thread also.) but also I see lots of linking to the research, lots of advice to make one's own decisions and no coercion. I've also seen lots of encouragement and validation of women's stories who have chosen to transfer, have induction or csections. These are less frequent - as they should be. Oh and the majority of posts suggesting ignoring advice about induction for small babies are referring to SGA babies, or suggesting IUGR has been misdiagnosed rather than someone suggesting one should actually ignore advice about true IUGR. This is actually evidenced based advice. SGA (but not IUGR) babies should not be induced according to the research. It's really important not to confuse the two.

The peer-reviewed data on well-integrated home-birth v hospital is conclusive that home is equally safe for the baby and significantly safer for the mother

Not for first babies it isn’t.

@lifeisnteasy
Home birth is safe for first time mums!