To think that homebirths should not be permitted unless you're willing to pay for it all yourself

[sparkleymummy]

Its appalling that there are not enough midwives to go around and yet women still insist on having babies at home. Why on earth would you think you have the "right to decide" where to have a baby when that service is being paid for by taxpayers. You wouldn't think you had the right to have a hip replacement at home or any other medical procedures. What on earth gives these women "the right"

(Sparkleymummy is a bit bored as a result of teething baby having been asleep on her ALL day - She sits back and waits for the uproar )

if it was more expensive to give birth at home it would NOT be an option on the NHS. This can be seen from the ridiculous plans to close hospitals up and down the country to save money.

Shrinkingsagpuss this is a parenting forum. Surely part of its purpose is to promote debate. If I want to put forward a controversial view then I'm entitled to do so.

I had no idea whether it was more expensive or not (although admittedly I assumed it probably was) but I was interested to find out.

Sparkely, can you do me a favour?

I'm booked in to have an elective caesarian tomorrow, one of the more expensive ways to birth a child, I don't really want to, but you know risks of stillbirth and that, could you maybe try and change CSections so they can only be emergencies?
Only then I can have a lie-in.

Homebirths are cheaper, and safer for both mother and baby.

Whilst not apologising for my post I do apologise if this is trolling as has been suggested. I didn't realise that

It's more debate than trolling bacause you said you were bored in your post .

Have you considered a DS Lite?

Oh dear, sparkley, I reckoned you weren't entirely serious but you seem to have touched a nerve and provoked ire. Oops.
I thought it was obvious your OP was tongue in cheek.

A controversial or strongly worded OP isn't always a bad thing, imo. You may have just hit the wrong time of day here.

I am gutted no one bit my selfish bfers post. Alas.

has everyone had enough cake?

good.

Looks like this thread is over now.

Waaaah! I missed cake

Agree with Fairylights - the midwives I had were the ones that worked through the GP surgery and recommended homebirths because they had more involvement that way - in hospital the consultants would butt in - the hospital midwives were a totally different bunch of people. The first time my community midwife came with me to the hospital and then left after the birth, the second time the midwife did a home delivery - the third another home delivery. These midwives will deliver your baby where you wanted - at home, at the hospital or at the birthing unit in town. Even if homebirths were more expensive (which people have already proven they aren't) it is more convenient for hospitals. Most midwives try to persuade you to have a home birth if the first birth was trouble free. This is because once baby is born they can be out of your home within a couple of hours, it's a more relaxing (usually) experience for mother AND baby - and it's not taking up a bed in the hospital that could be used for a first time mother or a more complicated birth. I think we're all in agreement that there simply isn't enough midwives but why should mothers suffer from that? I don't think it's even about training more midwives - there are plenty out there but probably not in work because the NHS continues to cut back on a service that is needed. A far better thread would be am I being unreasonable to expect a midwife for my delivery.....just because you were short of a midwife during more of your delivery doesn't mean they were all out on home births - simply that the NHS don't employ enough in the hospitals. Or if you really wanted to kick off a thread to get peoples' backs up why no a Am I being unreasonable to expect ALL mothers to give birth at home rather than in hospitals where those wards could be used for people suffering from REAL illnesses and injuries

and bugger - missed the cake AGAIN!!

Personally, I distrust the statistics. I don't think you can compare the cost of planned homebirths with that of planned hospital births.

Planned hospital births are always going to include a fair proportion of women like me, whose medical problems always made it clear that there was only one available plan. By the time I had my planned hospital birth, I had been spending several weeks on the ante-natal ward. And yes, people like me cost a lot more to deliver. So we push up the costs for the category of planned hospital births.

Also, a lot of the planned hospital births include first mothers, where medical problems may not be apparent until after they start labour: this happened to a fair few friends of mine. In other words, if they hadn't already been in the category of planned hospital births, they would have ended up being counted in the category of emergency births.

But I really don't see a reason why I should grudge other more fortunate women to have a happier, more natural experience of giving birth. For me, it was always going to be a fairly medical experience and I'm fine with that; doesn't mean everybody has to go through the same.

I also understand that there is a good possibility that some women are so stressed by being in hospital that it might make their labour longer (and consequently more expensive).

People are different, let's just accept each other.

It is not all about cost though is it? I had a homebirth with DD - the first midwife arrived 20 mins before she was born, the second arrived 20 mins after she was born. They stayed for about an hour after she was born. They were both on-call community midwives. Was there really a need for me to trail 45 mins to the hospital and possibly not make it for that? And me not being in the hospital presumably freed up a labour room (and possibly midwife) for someone who needed it more than I did. DH caught DD quite competently while the midwife was helping me.

Message withdrawn

Sparkly - I'm sorry you had so little attention in hospital - that's what you should complain about, not that other women got the midwife attention they need and deserve. You deserved that attention too and it's a scandal you didn't get it - in or out of hospital.

A friend of mine had a 2nd baby at home. Despite her phoning the hospital to say that she was in labour at midday, no midwife arrived at her house until about 9.30 pm that day - just 15 minutes before the baby was born. And the midwife didn't have any gas and air with her.

I had all my dc in hospital (well, the last one was a birthing unit) and I had plenty of midwife attention, very good treatment and successful births. Luck of the draw.

Allowing ones self to be herded / bullied into hospital enables staffing to be managed to a minimum. The inadequate staffing levels are perpetuated because staffing managers can scrape by on minimum numbers. A home birth demands the midwifery attention that every woman deserves, but it also pressurises the staffing decisions in an upward direction.

If women are persuaded to abandon their home birth plans on the grounds of staff shortages, the health authority will have no incentive to improve its services for other women.

Better for everyone, in fact.

well what about me who has had 1 CS and 3 VBACs, with all my kids needing SCBU for 3 days, 5 weeks, 3 weeks and 10 days. How much have me and my kids cost the taxpayer??

yabu - you dont even know the facts!!

OP- birth is individual process with sole desired outcome of live birth.mums should be able to chose mode of delivery whether Home,hosp,BC. in general birth is not illness and many HB are safe and viable.

If the women who wish to birth at home all gave in and went to hospital, we'd NEVER get the beaurocrats to realise that Maternity services NEEDS more finance and more mw. Childbirth is NOT an illness and for those who wish to labour and birth at home, that gives them the best opportunity of a normal, natural birth, which is far cheaper than a hospital one.

Then those who have genuine need of hospital facilities might get better treatment and more attentive mw whilst they are there.

In response to the OP hb's cost less!

Also giving birth is not a "medical procedure!"

will go and read the rest of the thread now.....

I have to say that there could be a bit of merit to the idea that some of the planned hospital births were specifically that due to expected complications or known medical problems which would have driven up their costs anyway. And that would skew the figures a bit.

But I do agree that we need more midwives.

My goodness you are brave (or mad!) sparkley.

I think the stats are only about 2% of births in the UK are HBs but you wouldn't know this from MN...(bit like how many education threads are about private schools I suppose).

My recollection from other threads about this is that a straightforward HB is cheaper, but that there is bias in that more complicated births are in hospital.

Personally, I'm not pro HBs (hides in terror) but the financial side of things wouldn't be a consideration because the NHS is too vast not to be able to fund a couple of MWs for our 2% of births which are a HB. I think the costs issue as a wider debate might be the cost of hospital transfer/looking after the baby if something went wrong, which very tragically has just happened to someone I know (and yes, I know things can go wrong in a hospital birth too).

2 MWs for my last HB were pulled out of hospital for 6 hours, which I do feel guilty about. 2 hours of that was them insisting they had to stay that long after my placenta was out before they could leave. Which doesn't seem to be policy everywhere...

OTOH, In the USA most women have to pay something towards their hospital births -- this can run into thousands of $ even for a straightforward vaginal birth, depending what your health insurance covers. Maybe UK should move towards that kind of model?

yabu - birth is not a medical procedure.

I have medical insurance like everyone here in Belgium. When I had my home birth we actually got reimbursed some money from the insurance company because the cost of the home birth was less then the cost of a hospital birth.