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?

I think so many women have had awful births where they haven't been given good advice, they have been coerced or had decision making power taken away from them. Informed consent seems to be quite far down the list of priorities of a lot of maternity care staff in NHS hospitals. This sort of group is the consequence of that. There are people out there giving good and balanced advice too but the NHS seem to not want anyone to deviate from their process or question what is happening to them or seek another route.

As any online space you will get the moderate and sensible and also the extreme and irrational types of people.

YANBU- I think it’s a bit mad.. I get the impression there’s a bit of a trend atm for non-medical approach for birth. I posted yesterday on another thread same thing- what I’ve been told by my midwife, my consultant and then on my antenatal course are three totally different narratives. Bonkers and I agree the lack of common narrative at the moment that seems to be increasing to me, is dangerous. Xo

That’s exactly it @Anonlan, home birth is a perfectly fine choice In the right circumstances but good god for a person with a history of premature labour and going into prem labour and the staff when called literally begging her to come in and her refusing only to be met with loads of ‘ omg you’re so amazing, so strong’ ‘well done you for not letting them bully you to coming in’.

I do think that the problem stems from the lack of individualised care within the nhs maternity system though. I know that I was left with pnd/ptsd after my first as a direct result of the NHS midwife I had.

There are things done in the NHS purely because of the number of women they see. For example my IM didn't measure me, she was used to seeing my size, feeling the baby so she didn't need to. The NHS see so many women, it's a method to cope with the volume you see. My IM also got to know my personality, which would have made a massive difference in my first birth - I was treated as overreacting, but someone who knew me would have realised they should have listened to me.

For my second I used an independent midwife, planned a home birth (ended up transferring in) but there's no true independent midwives able to practice now because the insurance is just unaffordable.

Freebirth is such a crazy idea. Even in times and places where drs and hospitals were not safe or not available, pregnant women would generally have other experienced women at the birth with them!

@Diggersaursarethebest

There’s a pretty good way of determining if it’s relatively safe to have a homebirth in the UK. If the midwives say yes, you’re probably good to go (but you have to accept you might need to transfer in to hospital if things don’t go to plan). If the midwives say no you’d be daft to say ‘ok, I’m going to freebirth then.´ In other countries homebirths are not a thing because noone will insure the midwives who might otherwise agree to assist.

I agree. The other factor I think is how far your ambulance transfer would be. I friend in a far flung location got transferred at the first hint of trouble as the transfer was a couple of hours. The midwives were taking no risks. Total waste of time getting the pool set up. Plus she was a first time mum. No great surprise a birth didn't take place in their house that night. Good on the midwives for being the grown ups here.

..if you broke your leg would you expect different info and messages from each team you saw- paramedics, doctors, consultants, surgical team..? I wouldn’t and i don’t understand why the advice and narrative around birth is not more coherent and consistent x

I think part of the problem is that long before covid people had to fight for home births.

I was told five times during one of my pregnancies that they “didn’t do” home births. They also said no one would be available. When I called in Labour I was told no one was available, yet when I said I was labouring at home and intending to have a home birth so they needed to send someone there was a MW in my house 20 mins later. It was standard in my area to tell people to go to hospital, no matter what.

Unfortunately that means that when they are short staffed people don’t believe them.

Poor maternity care has brought us to this point, nothing else. only good quality, well funded (therefore well staffed) care will pull it back.

Especially whilst there are some hospitals that are frankly dangerous to give birth in because they are so under funded and under staffed.

Same thing for breastfeeding groups. When my boy was born, he dropped 12% of his body weight and I refused to give him formula in the first 3 days because I was being told 'dont listen to midwives pushing formula on the ward, just keep the baby latching and all will be well. It is physically impossible for you not to produce enough to feed your baby'.

I was very vulnerable after a traumatic birth and alone in hospital due to Covid restrictions. I was discharged home and ended up back in the day after with a heavily jaundiced baby boy who needed the billi bed.

It turned out my PCOS meant my tits never grew enough breast tissue in puberty to actually produce milk. I could produce small amounts of colostrum but my actual milk never came in because it couldn't. I physically can't produce it and this isnt even rare.

After we figured out what was happening I still wasn't convinced because I'd been so conditioned not to trust midwives from those bloody groups. I finally snapped out of it because a no nonsense midwife on the infant feeding team gave me a hug and said 'you dont need my permission to stop trying to breastfeed, but you have it.' That was enough for me to move completely to formula.

As a first timer with no experience of babies, I will never forgive evangelist breastfeeders for making me feel inadequate for expressing concern that i might not be producing milk. They literally told me it was impossible without any medical knowledge at all and had I followed their advice, my baby would have died.

@CrazyOldBagLady

I think so many women have had awful births where they haven't been given good advice, they have been coerced or had decision making power taken away from them. Informed consent seems to be quite far down the list of priorities of a lot of maternity care staff in NHS hospitals. This sort of group is the consequence of that. There are people out there giving good and balanced advice too but the NHS seem to not want anyone to deviate from their process or question what is happening to them or seek another route.

As any online space you will get the moderate and sensible and also the extreme and irrational types of people.

I agree to an extent but sadly it’s the admins of these groups that spread THE most dangerous advice and thus set the tone for the whole group.

What gets me is the lack of accountability for the admins offering such dangerous advice and fuelling fear in women about hospitals or even birth centre births and encouraging them to take such stupid and potentially deadly risks. The fact that these women have live babies to show for it isn’t because they made the right / safe choice it’s just because they were bloody lucky.

I agree that freebirthing is incredibly dangerous but unfortunately this is the consequence of a broken NHS impacting births and giving women traumatic experiences due to lack of informed consent and care. Shutting down these groups isn't the answer, reforming how the NHS treats birth is.

YANBU. I have an NCT friend who was in such cultish home birth group, luckily she is sufficiently intelligent to research her options.

I very much support the idea women's preferences regarding giving birth should be listened to. I think part of the reason for the existence of such groups is that sadly there are many dismissive professionals within the NHS who either don't listen, don't explain or attempt to force things upon women. Equally, however, there are great professionals whose advice should be followed for the sake of both, babies and mothers. I think for some women the balance is off, perhaps having heard too many awful stories involving the hospitals which unfortunately are true and should have never happened.

I had extra scans because the NHS tick boxes deemed I was under weight and so my baby was at risk. I had to see a consultant who thought it was all ridiculous, the scan lady said it was a breath of fresh air to see someone thin rather than someone obese :-/ and I went on to have an over 9lb baby.

I then went over term due to the fact that they wouldn't listen to when I'd conceived (I'd charted temps) because they had to tick boxes based on LMP. So after I was told I couldn't have a Home birth due tot staff shortages, I was then told I could no longer give birth at a MLU because according to their tick boxes I was a risk and so would have to go to a hospital an hour away as the nearest one was too busy.

I got an independent midwife in the end and after the NHS I found her absolutely amazing. She listened to me, was happy for me to have a home birth, worked with me and I found it a wonderful experience.

A lot of 'risks' are hugely over stated by the NHS - the info is outdated but perhaps it's to avoid the possibility of getting sued. Going over due dates is one example.

@Franca123 the ridiculousness of that persons statement is that most sheep can’t give birth without human assistance

I think Midwives do factor in transfer time when they are assessing someone as being suitable for a homebirth. If I lived somewhere where it was a possibility I’d consider it as long as the transfer was really short. Although no way would it work for most people around here because it’s all old building with flats and either no lift or a tiny tiny lift you would struggle to even put a wheelchair in.

This is 100x worse in the US also. My Instagram 'recommended' is full of these 'mommies'.

I don't know the right way to say this without being offensive, but not everyone in those groups is as intelligent as they believe they are. And I really worry someone's baby is going to take that risk and it not turn out well.

Again agree to an extent @Tal45, for instance knowing what I know now I wouldn’t have have had an induction with my first as that risk was overstated. Similarly (to an extent) being post dates that’s why I didn’t include it in my OP but true iugr and prematurity those risks most certainly aren’t overstated and shouldn’t be diminished by a HB support group.

I agree that it’s a consequence of a broken system (although of course you will always get ‘extremists’ in any area of life) too many women are left completely traumatised by birth, too many women experience obstetric violence, unnecessary intervention or like many have pointed out inconsistent and contradictory advice from different professionals, often given with coercive or patronising language. I think if services improved and left less women traumatised there would be a reduction in these types of extreme groups.

I don't think the pandemic has helped with restrictions on having partners being put in place may have pushed some women into considering having a home birth. Some hospitals seen to be putting restrictions on visiting again beavuse of the current wave.
Sound like some very bad advice is being given in these groups I hope these mothers listen to their medical professionals over a Facebook group.

@DollyDingleberry I’m sorry you went through that! I think the tone in those groups and the ‘it’s normal Hun, just feed feed feed’ message is incredibly damaging. I was so bad with it too, my daughter had a tongue tie that reattached and was slow gaining weight for a while and I couldn’t bring myself to pick up and put a tin of formula in trolley or pay for it at checkout because it felt like such failure. Dh had to go back around the supermarket when we were done to get it. So ridiculous looking back x

YANBU as a HCP it is dangerous and to be honest frightening the opinions of some people. The attitude of 'well I did it and it was fine/wonderful' makes me cringe. Those posters would be the last to take responsibility if a woman were to free birth at their recommendation and the baby died.
A good friend had a homebirth against medical advice, a midwife went out to her but begged her to go to hospital, there was even an ambulance outside. Baby got stuck and was starved of oxygen and now has very severe neurological disabilities. My friend has spoken and cried to me about it for many hours and I just have to sit biting my tongue. The birth was about her, not the baby. Of course I would be nothing but supportive.
Not only that but it also exacerbates the guilt and sadness some women have at 'failing' at natural birth and having to have a c section. Another friend had a section due to placenta praevia (had no choice basically and kept haemorrhaging). I know she still feels hugely guilty and angry at herself that she couldn't give birth naturally which to me seems ridiculous but is a direct result of this 'natural is ALWAYS best' mentality.

YANBU at all! I'm planning my second HB and I'm on a few UK groups too, as they are handy for tips on preparation but sometimes I'm just gobsmacked at what I read. And if anyone dare suggests a poster may indeed be better off in hospital they are absolutely shredded to pieces.

My biggest bugbear is women refusing all scans, blood tests and monitoring because they have faith in their body to grow a baby properly, but then demand that some poor midwife must be available to be there for the birth as that is "their right", and tonnes of posters agree. If you don't listen to 99% of the medical advice and are so sure everything will be fine then why do you insist they are there?!

@DrSbaitso

It's a sign of extreme privilege. Women in the developing world who don't have access to hospitals and all they contain don't see birth this way.

Complete agree with this. It also seems to come from a belief that the birth itself is somehow a reflection of how ‘good’ a mother you are. So a home birth somehow makes you a better mother compared to a hospital delivery with epidural, or forceps for example.

Home births, and the control you have over the setting, also seem to play into some people’s desire to ‘curate’ every sodding aspect of their lives.

My philosophy was that birth was simply a means to an end. As long as both mother and baby emerge healthy - both physically and mentally - then the birth was successful.

I know what you mean as I am in a couple. However, a lot of them are very supportive and encouraging in other ways. I've used them as the backbone to my own research and I personally wouldn't freebirth but I am really lucky with my homebirth team in my area who have been amazing. Of course, they could be shut down and I'm trying to come to terms with that (I'm due soon) but also I'm quite comfortable with being at home for the majority and trying my luck at calling someone out last minute regardless (as my own midwife said in this instance they would try to get someone out regardless)

@Orarewedancer

YANBU at all! I'm planning my second HB and I'm on a few UK groups too, as they are handy for tips on preparation but sometimes I'm just gobsmacked at what I read. And if anyone dare suggests a poster may indeed be better off in hospital they are absolutely shredded to pieces.

My biggest bugbear is women refusing all scans, blood tests and monitoring because they have faith in their body to grow a baby properly, but then demand that some poor midwife must be available to be there for the birth as that is "their right", and tonnes of posters agree. If you don't listen to 99% of the medical advice and are so sure everything will be fine then why do you insist they are there?!

Think we’re on the same groups @Orarewedancer! It’s terrifying the mentality, people are almost shunned for considering a MLU birth and ‘allowing’ themselves to be transferred in, it’s bonkers