To be fed up of the "home birth is risky" misinformation?

[everychildmatters]

Because clearly evidence says otherwise!!

@Bigpinksweater Of course you are going to get incompetent midwives in a home birth situation, just as you will find them in hospitals. Not sure the point you are trying to make?
Having said that, it is of further reassurance in home births that you are assigned two midwives in the later stages of labour which has its clear advantages.
The salient fact is this lady was advised a home birth was not going to be suitable based on various risk factors but she still asserted her right to chose. Just like women can choose to have a C-section if they so wish.
That does not make all home births unsafe!

My point is that people often say they get better care at home and that the midwives are brilliant and experienced, so if complications do arise, they’re in capable hands.

That wasn’t the case here. The midwife at the birth had no experience in resuscitation and had never dealt with a haemorrhage outside of a hospital setting before. Then there’s the queries around why readings weren’t properly recorded and so on.

So is it just the fact the mums are healthy and low risk and generally multiparous that make it ‘so safe’ rather than the much better care everyone has mentioned here?

This lady did make very high risk decisions but even a low risk person can have haemorrhages or a baby that needs resuscitation. If the midwives are inept that’s a real worry as people often quote ‘they can do that all at home’.

@Bigpinksweater As I said before, you are going to get incompetent midwives wherever they work. That's pretty obvious.
But the biggest issue here by far was that this lady was high risk. She was advised against home birth. You have to feel sorry for the midwives really to a degree as they were put in such an incredibly challenging position.
But it would appear a woman's right to choose trumps everything.

YABU
Home births can be extremely risky for some women and/or their babies. It is not risky for all women, by any means, and can be a good choice for some women who are well with low risk pregnancies.

That said, even low risk pregnancies can rapidly become complicated and it’s not a risk I would want to take, personally. My second was a fairly textbook/entirely normal, pregnancy and I am fit, healthy and low risk. Had I opted for home birth there is a very high likelihood that my baby would have died. it happens, it’s not always predictable. I don’t think that my experience means no women should have home births, but I think women do need to consider that factor, and indeed know how to understand the evidence in context.

The evidence shows that for low risk women/pregnancies, home births are indeed largely safe. However, the data does not suggest it is safe for all women- most women who have home births in the UK are low risk, so the low complication rates are exactly what I would expect. It’s a pre-selected, “biased” sample by its very definition and relatively low in number when compared to total births. You have to bear that in mind when using the data and extrapolating from it.

@jacks11 Wonder what would happen to the vote if the title was changed to include the word "ALL?" Clearly many (misinformed) women still believe this, regardless of any evidence suggesting otherwise.

It if you have an incompetent midwife in hospital, there are other midwives and doctors there to intervene. At home there isn’t - there’s a wait for an ambulance then the time taken for a hospital transfer. A PPH or baby in need of resuscitation could happen to anybody, albeit she was higher risk for those things. This scenario could’ve happened to a low risk women although it was less likely.

The problem with this thread is that all the pro home birthers had good home births with healthy children that lived. The dead women aren’t here and the women whose children died in home births dare not open this thread.

The pro home birthers have never felt the fear that your child is a whisper away from death, that medics are white in the face and the fear in their voice that they think your baby is probably going to die as they rush you in for a crash section. Your baby’s heart rate has stopped.

So they are arguing from a place of ignorance and privilege

Why does it bother you so much? If someone wanted a homebirth but was scared off it but a believe it is inherently riskier without looking more into it then that's her choice. Why are you concerned with the choices other women make so much.

You would never have convinced me 8 years ago when I was last pregnant that it was a sensible choice to consider a homebirth as I simply wasn't interested and ultimately it still feels far safer to be at home regardless of what evidence you believe to the contrary. Why is that a problem? If I wanted a homebirth I could have had one.

When I had dd3 , it’s was a horrific hospital experience due to a horrific midwife ..
That said I didn’t dream of having my son at home cause at the end of the day if anything went wrong there are doctors present …

Agree. There was a poster on here some years ago who had a very smooth homebirth but her baby was born not breathing. She was catastrophically brain damaged and needed 24 hour care as she couldn’t sit up or speak. The 10 minutes the transfer took was 10 minutes her daughter didn’t have. She posted quite a lot about it, I often wonder how she is doing now.

Spot on.
Survivors bias.

@Tralalalama Well actually I have experience of both. An incompetent student midwife in hospital broke my waters without informed consent which caused my baby's heart rate to drop so low it almost stopped. Emergency situation with drs rushing in as you describe. He was left very poorly and with permanent hearing damage.
If she had just allow me to labour naturally and at my own pace this would not have happened. I blame myself to some extent for allowing her to do it but I was basically told "we need the room."
My last baby was a home birth and far, far safer.

I bled out at home and needed a lot of blood transfusions. Just one doesn't seem like such a big bleed in the context of mine. Still alive. I do think I'd have not got into such bad condition in hospital (but don't know that) and my midwife wasn't proactive enough about handling the situation, but it still worked out. I know I'd have been screwed if I'd had a PPH that just kept pouring out as you can bleed out within minutes and die. However, in that situation, there's no guarantee I'd survive in hospital either.

Oh yes, if I did have another baby I'd have it in hospital, but only because my risk has changed.

But your last baby was your second baby, and second births are statistically much better and more straightforward. It’s all but impossible to separate out the confounding factors. I’m sorry you had such a bad experience first time round.

Your baby OP that thankfully was born at home with no complications was sheer luck & don’t think anything otherwise ..
Sorry to hear about your daughter & her permanent hearing loss, but the dangers of home births v the danger of hospital births
, sorry I feel no comparison ..
Answer me this , a woman is at home & her baby stops breathing or she haemorrhages, what do you do at home if faced with this ??? What do you do if you’re in the hospital?
I think the answer is plain as day in the question & where the woman is better off to be …

Rubbish. I know what it's like to lie there with paramedics hanging over you, going in an out of consciousness, and wondering if you're going to see that baby in the corner grow up. Still pro-homebirth.

@Bigpinksweater My last baby was my third "born" baby, sixth pregnancy. My first baby was also an awful hospital birth.

My point was that the Op referring to it as a reason to have a home birth might have eluded to a concern with medical people touching her which seems quite a specific concern - when most women have smears and other checks during pregnancy.

I think we are mixing very specific concerns like hospital anxiety and Covid with a general acceptance from every woman I know who once armed with their own research decided on balance to give birth in a hospital. Also lots of medical professionals I know that wouldn’t dream of a home birth.

I know plenty of medical professionals who attend home births. Home birth midwives are medical professionals. We also had a local GP that attended home births. Like OP, I also had a first birth where medical professionals did unnecessary things that did increase the risks, and opted to have future babies at home. I believe it is generally safe, though how safe it is depends on personal factors and your location. During my last birth, things weren't done that should have been done, so now I don't trust anyone to do the right thing at the right time.

@CremeBruhlee No - I don't have a problem with medical professionals touching me intimately when it is necessary e.g. for my cervical screen. But I declined VEs in pregnancy and labour as they are entirely unecessary and of course carry an infection risk.

By ‘wouldn’t dream of a home birth’ I mean having one themselves or recommending them over a hospital birth and I know of lots of medical professionals (I do understand that medical professionals attend them).

I'm glad I had my two at the hospital. My first was born premature and needed a NICU stay for weeks. My second was stuck in the birth canal. Forceps were used, and I had a tear and stitches.

Medical professionals also have their personal preferences and values they bring to their work. I prefer less medical intervention in every part of my life, though do what is really necessary. If I were a medical professional and discussing birth options with a patient, I'd have my own biases, but support them in whatever choice they make after objectively discussing the pros and cons of all options. I would never make a recommendation unless there were clear reasons to do so.

I am not a medical professional but work in a profession where this is the approach I take to situations that arise. I know what I'd do in their situation, but that doesn't mean it's right for them.

Obviously you have a premature baby in hospital. That's necessary. Forceps (which I had with my first) are often the result of a cascade of interventions. If I hadn't had my labour sped up and been forced to birth on my back, I don't believe forceps would have been necessary for me.

That does make sense but again I just can’t see the benefit over the risk. Can you not just refuse a VE in hospital.

My hospital midwife’s were just really supportive of what I wanted for my first child’s birth and I’m really sorry yours weren’t. Maybe that’s what we should be doing by allowing the hospital experience for all women to feel as empowering as a home birth so that women don’t have to weigh up risk against a really poor experience.