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

[everychildmatters]

Because clearly evidence says otherwise!!

I think there would be fewer. Something is very wrong with maternity

@TempestTostthat is exactly what happened to me. I ended up with major abdominal surgery as a result of being pushed through a cascade of interventions. They pressured to break my waters, then pressured to start pitocin (then didn’t notice that they had completely missed the vein and I had been labouring for hours without the pitocin). Added to which for the monitoring I was forced to lie on my back for hours and hours. You wouldn’t treat an animal like that.

I was hallucinating with lack of sleep by the time my son was born midnight Saturday/sunday as had not slept since Wednesday. I was then returned to the ward, alone with no pain relief. Vile.

Probably need to see some stats for home birth risk factors in relation to proximity to emergency care. A home birth 2 hours from hospital vs a home birth 5min from one - very different scenarios.

I'm really sorry you went through this 🤗

It was 100% coercion. Every woman is entitled to informed choice and informed consent. Just coming into your home and telling you horror stories is not informed consent it's threats. Every single "complication" that the consultant had come up with was baseless threats that even those 3 nurses agreed with me. We compromised on getting the GBS Swab then remaining at home.
He was the smallest PPH of all of them as there were no other interventions which the hospital always insisted on.
Home Birth is inherently less risk than a hospital birth the statistics back that up. When done correctly with informed choices made.
People will claim survivor bias but the same applies to hospital. How many women claim that their baby wouldn't have survived had they not been in hospital, then go on to say the huge chain of interventions which have been proven to cause these life threatening situations. That is also a survivor bias.

The evidence shows that for low risk pregnancies home birth for first time mothers is as safe for the baby and slightly less safe for the mother. Fro second and subsequent births home is safer for mother and baby.

Lots of times when people say they would have had a terrible incident if they'd been at home they had accepted or been forced into interventions at hospital that increased those risks. For example being induced increases your risk of baby's shoulder getting stuck, PPH and instrumental delivery. If they hadn't been induced those risks wouldn't have been present. Epidurals increase risk etc.

I was technically a high risk as my BMI is in the overweight category but after my induction with my first in hospital I had my other two babies at home. One was born before the midwives arrived and the other the midwives were present. In both cases baby and I were perfectly healthy despite a mild PPH in my hospital birth and an episiotomy. Home births were relaxed, comfortable and my babies had a much gentler introduction into the world that my poor first baby who got dragged out due to an unnecessary induction.

Hospital births are absolutely the safest for high risk pregnancies (breech birth, gestational diabetes, pre eclampsia etc etc) but for low risk subsequent pregnancies it is statistically safer for mother and baby.

My dm was a midwife on a gp unit.
The women were monitored throughout pregnancy by gp’s and midwives and gave birth in hospital but on a ward run by midwives and very low tech.

If a woman got into serious difficulties the midwife could transfer them to the consultant unit below in minutes or the medical staff could come up to the gp unit.
It was the ideal halfway house for women who wanted a more ‘home type’ birth but the added safety of all the medical staff and equipment on site.

I’ve only skim read the article but my post was based on mothers who want a home birth and have no obvious complications, in which case it could be just as safe to birth at home.

It seems in her case she wasn’t keen to go to hospital when needed and was advised not to have a home birth as she had strep b and other complications? I personally would have birthed in hospital in her case, but I guess we don’t know enough to know if she would have definitely survived in hospital either.

If I'd had my last baby in hospital I'd have been writing the same. "Lucky I had this one in hospital or we would probably both be dead!" Yet I had baby at home and here we both are ... just. But we're here. Previously no risk factors and good births.

Something is very wrong but that is true of most of the NHS at the moment.

Yes, very different scenarios. That said, it took the ambulance half an hour to get to me at home when we had an ambulance station just up the road. It came from another one.

My trust has a separate home birth team. I wanted a hospital birth anyway (and needed one due to PPROM and no labour starting within 24 hours). What they don't tell you is that if they're all out on home births you're out of luck and will have to go to the nearest birthing unit or hospital. This happened to my NCT group friend. As it was, she needed a section anyway as they had vastly underestimated the 10lb baby's size and she is tiny.

My midwife only did home births and wouldn't have been in a hospital unless transferring a woman who needed hospital care. It didn't take anyone away from anything.

I would had died if I had opted for a homebirth. No risk factors or anything worrying throughout my pregnancy but DD got stuck and I needed an emergency c section. Had to have a blood transfusion too. Home births aren't worth the risk imo

Maternity payouts make up a third of the total cost of NHS payouts

I'm not sure this is accurate. Surely it is more likely that your midwife would have picked up on the problems early on and got you transferred to hospital.

So I've just read the article. And in no way shape or form am I blaming the mother r.i.p to her and her baby. But she knew she carried strep b through pregnancy. Her other child caught sepsis through it and she also had to have a blood transfusion now I no hormones run high whilst pregnant but have we all lost our common senses the risks were so high its ridiculous

It is though. Even the most pro home birth woman i know who elected for home birth with all three of her children ended up in hospital with each one. In my case DD wouldn’t be likely be here and I probably wouldn’t have either.

This! After my first birth in hospital I ended up with Sepsis, which they staff ignored and told me I was “just tired” for three days afterwards. I nearly died, and this REALLY put me off a hospital birth, so I had a home birth the second time round.

BUT obviously there’s always risks, it wasn’t an unassisted home birth, I had planned for 2 midwives and said if anything started go wrong I was happy to go into hospital. The midwives ended up not being available until 10 minutes before baby arrived, so tbh the home birth still wasn’t without issues and the cord was wrapped around babies neck, so not sure what me or my partner would have done if they hadn’t have gotten there in time, as they obviously knew how to handoe the situation safely. Either way there’s risks, but I do agree the care is substandard here (Midlands) and I’m now not sure whether I’d choose to do a hospital or home birth next time as both were bad in different ways.

Homebirths are safer for the women who are low risk.

Firstly because you get better care for a start. The midwife comes out earlier, a second one joins earlier you are 1-1 and then 2-1. Their eyes always on you they will spot a problem much faster than in hospital sharing a midwife popping in and out. You also get continuity of care, for my second and third I had the same midwife for every appointment so she knew me, she could pick up on signs of me changing having seen me for 7 months rather than some random on delivery ward.

However for some people there will still be an emergency and it would happen hospital home or the moon so yes there is still risk. Your distance from the hospital and so on should all be taken into account when you decide to try a homebirth and you have to be open minded to transfer with a hand up inside you if need be.

My first birth in hospital was horrible constantly told not to come in and that I clearly wasn’t in labour when I ignored them and went in I was already 9cm so would of had a unassisted birth if I had listened to nhs advise that time. Where’s birth two and three I was recommended to homebirth with midwives to come as soon as I said I was in labour in our area the ambulance crew are notified of homebirth in action so as ready as they can be.

It’s a dedicated home birth team so takes nothing away from other women although selfishly anyway it’s not home birthers problem anyway and even if transferred in she will nee those midwifes and get another likely.

Me too.

An ambulance wouldn’t have saved my baby even though I live less than half a mile from the hospital.
I had 17 medical staff with me including a handful of consultants/surgeons. I think at least 3+ midwives.
They had a stopwatch for how many minutes left to get baby out and someone would shout out the time left every 1 minute or less (something like 3 mins to get into theatre, 3 mins to prep and 3 mins to cut baby out).
So all in all less than 10 mins to save a baby’s life. And honestly the medics sounded worried.

Plus there’s no real reason about why this happened other than ‘fetal distress’ so it’s not like they could have planned for it or that they or I could have prevented it from happening.

I doubt it and live over an hour away from a hospital. I was on the pushing stages of labour, Dr was called then straight into theatre- they put me to sleep to do the c section. I'm so grateful I was surrounded by a full medical team. I think saying home births are less risky is irresponsible

See I agree in that case. Over an hour away from hospital I wouldn’t homebirth and I’ve had two.

I am really sad that since I gave birth 7 years ago they have closed the small local birthing units here. They were the perfect happy medium. 4-6 beds, staffed by midwives, calm.and quiet. We were all familiar with them as they were also the locations of midwife appointments and scans. I was transferred to one of these for 24 hours after birth for help with breastfeeding and monitoring after a haemorrhage - I'm not sure I could have managed to feed DS for nearly 2 years without it.

No-one serious argues this. At least not for a home birth attended by a fully qualified midwife who can get you to hospital if things are going wrong.

When I gave birth 12 years ago the best research on this showed no greater risk for a home birth for a second birth but an increase in risk for a first birth, from memory it was a doubling of risk.