AIBU to think this was wildly irresponsible?

[LylaLee]

I have a friend, "Ann". We used to be close but lost touch.

She and her partner have a 5 year old and she's just had a new baby.

She had put her 'birth journey' on Facebook. (Text, not video/pictures)

She and her partner have a third person in the relationship, "Carol", a woman who is her partner Bob's girlfriend. It was the three of them in the bedroom. (The 7 y/o was with a nanny in another part of the house).

She wanted a birth with no medical professionals, just the universe, incense etc.

Bob delivered the baby with Carol helping.

They wanted a lotus birth (where you don't cut the umbilical cord). But the placenta was not detaching, so after a few hours after the baby was born, they went to hospital (baby outside the body, placenta inside, umbilical cord still attached.)

None of the three are medical professionals. She's an artist, he's a musician and I don't know what the Carol does but Ann said she'd not a nurse/doctor/midwife when I asked.

There's nothing wrong with having a baby at home. Nothing wrong with the 7 year old being there.

But to have no medical person present is disgusting. She could have died, the baby could have died.

I said congratulations, but I feel disgusted by her selfishness. They could have left the 5 yo motherless.

FFS.

AIBU to be appalled? On mobile so I can't enable voting.

It's having the damn commonsense to manage the risk.

Hmm.. I think I'd actively 'lose touch- with her again if were in your shoes!
I am just not on the same wavelength as someone who chooses a set up like this.. including having your partner's girlfriend (!) deliver your baby.. that'll be an interesting story to tell the child when they're older!🙄
Yeah each to their own and all that but we are all entitled to our own views.

Yeah I know a few people like this(home ed circles have some people very into this kind of stuff). I wouldn’t say it disgusts me but it does give me the fear, maybe because of my own birth experiences.

It’s irresponsible but people do daft things all the time. I think you are a bit over invested in this.

I suppose it does seem a tad irresponsible but the relationship itself is weird as fuck and smacks of the old man getting to have his cake and eat it. Has he considered castration? Is she allowed to have another boyfriend in the marital bed too or is only he allowed to do that?

Perhaps she had an awful experience in hospital her first time. Second births are safer at home, and she could call out a midwife at any point or an ambulance as she did do.

your reaction is ott. There was an issue, she went to hospital. You wouldn’t dream of choosing that yourself and that’s fine.

The whole setup sounds utterly bonkers

And (unpopular opinion I know) I don't agree with planned home births so YANBU on that front.

How do people think a problem with baby during labour would be detected at home with no assistance?

I’m not clear how the fact that there is a third person in the relationship is relevant to the concern here, which is presumably about the potential health risk to mother and baby. People’s relationships are entirely their own business, whatever we might think of them.

Why am I so exercised?

It's just the cavalier attitude to life/death.

I know someone who recently died of cancer. They would have done anything for more time.

I know someone who has lost a baby, and seen the devastation it caused in that family. And to risk that for no reason?

I know someone who lost their mother at a young age. If the 5yo was left without a mother, the whole trajectory of their life would change.

I know the terror of a delivery suddenly going wrong.

But Ann and the gang know they are playing with death/ life-changing disability, and just carry on blithely.

You can have an NHS home birth, but I appreciate the resources might not be available. You can pay for a private midwife at home. Even a doula who had attended many births would have been better. But they just ran through that minefield. Yes, it's expensive but so is a funeral.

That's not true at all

I'm explaining why Carol was there. She was not there as medical support but as Bob's girlfriend.

Post partum haemorrhage?

Cord around neck?

Shoulder dystocia?

Undiagnosed footling breech?

All can happen out of the blue in any labour - including a second/third/fourth/fifth (my mother had a PPH with her 4th following him being delivered blue 20 minutes previously, so they were busy trying to keep him alive when she suddenly haemorrhaged - and I wasn't in much better condition when I was born due to the cord being wrapped three times around my neck). I lost loads of blood when I had my second despite being actively cared for and monitored throughout - no reason for it, no anaemia, no obvious cause at all, I just started bleeding more heavily than expected.

It's hugely risky to not have anybody who actually knows what they're doing with someone in labour.

YANBU they sounds like a bunch of irresponsible pricks.

Totally not being unreasonable.

Birth is very very dangerous for mother and baby. In the past 25% - that is a quarter - of women died because of childbirth.

No one wants to be in hospital but it's a wonderful place in a medical emergency.

We, as in the women down the maternal line,tend to give birth without complications and without stitches. So my DD opted for a HB (water) for her first. The midwives don't come until labour is well established. The second we, me and her delivered in the bath. We were waiting for the midwife. This isn't really any different. It sounds as though you are against HB. The reasons why women died in child birth was connected to a lack of hygiene, nutrition, knowledge and no antibiotics/blood thinners etc. They sought treatment when needed.

Stupid imo. So many complications on birth that a good midwife can deal with successfully but novice wouldn't have a clue.
Have they not watched call the midwife!!

I laboured in natural labour room with minimal intervention, the baby's heart rate dropped massively so he had to come out. The midwives knew by monitoring and got me on a birthing stool to move process along.
If their baby had been starved of oxygen or she hemorrhage....

It might be legal but it doesn't make it not batshit

All the cool girls out in force tonight, OP. 😎

But none of them seem to be thinking what might have happened to the poor baby if the weather had been as it was two days ago, and you couldn’t just jump in the car ant get the ‘dreadful ‘( according to these posters) NHS A&E staff to deal with the perfectly predictable results of the parents’ ( and the father’s extra shag) irresponsibility.

let’s hope the poor baby has not suffered some irreversible birth damage as a result of the parents’ blind, self centred incompetence. Why do I think that if this has occurred it will be Ann who is left to cope?

the three adults are all just idiots!! sounds like they are the definition of hippies!

But why mention her at all? I think that is what I mean.

Have you not seen the multitude of news reports where about people having to wait hours for an "emergency" ambulance?

OP I agree with you. This was totally irresponsible. A home birth in the presence of trained midwives and a back up plan is one thing, this kind of "free birth" is quite another.

So there was Bob and Ann. And there was another person.
Who?
Carol
Who is Carol?
Bob's girlfriend.

Or: Bob, Ann, and Carol, Bob's girlfriend.

I would never comment on someone having a home birth because I have strong views and I know they’re unlikely to be welcome. If I’d had a home birth with dd1 (low risk text book pregnancy) I would likely have died. You never know if you’ll haemorrhage and getting an ambulance there in time is a massive gamble. Some people do assume birth is natural so there’s no way it’ll go wrong for them.