to think this woman's misguided to say the least?!

[Floopy21]

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/melanie_reid/article6101189.ece

yes, very sorry about your dd imum.

Yawn- another bloody hack harping on about something she's not bothered to research properly so instead spouts prejudiced rubbish and vitriol to fill the column inches. Blah blah blah bollocks.

Sorry imum about your dd, I think in your position I would have all mine in hospital too.

Not just lumping it in with breastfeeding, but also with sandals!

So this is what I get for relying on logic rather than research. Low-risk women do equally well at homebirths or in hospital, according to a link further up. How can that be the case? I would have thought that even though the risk of complications is low, for the small percentage who do have complications, being closer to medical help would lead to better outcomes than if you are a 20- or 30-minutes ambulance ride away. Or is it that women in the 'low-risk' category, if they do have complications, have complications that either: can wait 30 minutes with no further issues; or that can't be helped anyway?

From some of the descriptions of hospital treatment we should be focussing on campaigning for hospitals to be better equipped and better cleaned!

imum - that's terrible I'm very sorry for your loss.

And I can totally see why hospital was your choice afterwards.

But Maria - I've never been in a hospital that WASN'T cold and sterile! And dirty. Plus having to wait for long periods for a poor midwife who has 20 odd mums to look after doesn't appeal.

Oh and add to that the fact that depending on the time I gave birth my DP could be kicked out to go home on his own losing bonding time with his baby - No Thanks!

My best friend had her daughter in hospital and had the most horrific experience, not so much with the birth (although it was a emergency section) but with the aftercare.

She was left for hours, hardly acknowledged and then had a healthcare assistant come and rip off her pad without even introducing herself. She felt totally humiliated.

I admit this may well have coloured my view on hospital births (as did Ricki Lakes "The Business of Being Born)

i didn't research all stats re; safty...it just didn't enter my head to consider a home birth.... for a few reasons; 1) i want all the pain killing drugs a hospital can throw at me...2) safety....3) rest....how can you rest properly at home?

Trillian

I was wondering about that too. It isnt just the study linked to that says that home births are as safe as hospitla - It has been consisntantly shown that home birth is as safe as hospital.

I wonder if it might be that the risks are equal in magnitude, but different. So someone having a homebirth if they run into problems and cant be transferred to hospital quickly enough, and people in hospital may run into problems from the increased infection risk, risks from over intervention, lack of adequate supervision, lack of an encouraging envionment (so more intervention and therefore more risk). Thats my thoughts on it anyway.

daftpunk - it is possible to have a natural birth in hospital, but not always easy. The whole environment and culture of some of the bigger hospitals can work against it. For me, a midwife-led unit was the 'best of both worlds'. My experience of natural birth in a large hospital (not through choice, but it was a VBAC) was frankly awful.

The statistics for home births show that it has a very high safety record. I haven't had one myself (though my two VBs were natural, and I'm a great advocate of natural birth unless there are medical reasons for intervention) but I absolutely defend a woman's right to have one.

I'm taking the article all very personally and I'm not sure why. It's really, really upset me and made me angry. Why do I feel so strongly about a piece of crap journalism from a women I'll never meet and couldn't care less about? Hmm, maybe it says something about me too?

So we should be saying that hospitals need to be a nicer, cleaner, more caring, more encouraging place, with useful things like surgeons on hand, and then the safety would be better than current hospitals and better than current home births.

TrillianAstra - IMO the fact that you have at least one dedicated midwife at a homebirth (rather than one you may have to share in hospital) means that problems are picked up earlier than they might have been in hospital. That results in a transfer to hospital that can be relaxed rather then an absolute emergency iyswim. It's also worth bearing in mind that if, for example, a women at a homebirth transferred in needing a c-section (not always needed right that second) the midwife would phone ahead to get the theatre prepped and an anaesthetist waiting for her arrival - if she were in hospital she'd still have to wait for them to get to her.

I think it's also worth mentioning that going to hospital has it's risks too for both mother and baby, in particular from infection. While it's rare, the month after I had DD2 two women died in the same hospital folloing normal delivery from a hospital aquired infection. As you can imagine this is so rare it's been national news, so am certainly not wanting to frighten anyone. However when I was there the hopsital was filthy, and the aftercare was apalling.
I had both my kids by emergency section by the way, so am certainly not anti-intervention. At least one would have died without a section - however I don't believe a home birth would not have put her at risk. The fact that labour was not progressing and she was showing signs of distress would have been identified.

sandals?

The only case of childbirth fever I am aware of was that woman who developed it after giving birth in hospital and whose husband wrote about it after she died.

I had to stop reading after this opening paragraph

"Disgraceful stereotyping it may be, but it is impossible to deny that home births are the preserve of homely, principled types who may then go on to breastfeed their child until it goes to secondary school."

ignorant, misguided, lazy , sloppy and unintelligent 'journalism'

by all means debate home V hospital, but the stupid ,denigrating stereotypes are crapola

daftpunk - it's true that you cannot rest that well at home, but unless you can afford a private room I think it is even harder to rest in hospital! I had my first DC in hospital, stayed in two nights and never got any sleep at all...
Also, those of us with other DCs and childcare issues would not get any rest in hospital in the sure knowledge that we would be returning to a scene of chaos and devastation that was once our home...!

I think Trillian has it though - the issue is not intrinsically home birth vs hospital, but the poor care many women get while in hospital which colours their judgements for good reason.

Having experienced both NHS and Private Care (not for childbirth) my experience was that while the surroundings were better in private and the speed of appointments, follow up etc were better, I categorically got better and more considerate care while in NHS hospitals. I still think fondly of the NHS nurse who must have held my hand throughout a horrible semi-sedated procedure. I don't remember most of it but I remember being aware of pain and being miserable and having someone holding my hand while tears leaked out.

her last paragraph seems to say that women would not die in childbirth in hospital, which is not true. modern medicine has done amazing things and surely more women and babies are surviving. but there was an enquiry a couple of years ago, i think it was into northwick park, correct me if i am wrong after a significant amount of maternal deaths ...

women do not get the care they deserve in hospital due to staff shortages.

that is the salient point

violethill...i had a natural birth with ds1 (st.thomas')..it was awful...still wouldn't put me off hospital births....i just wouldn't take the risk with home births.

araminta...yes agree rest isn't always possible in a hospital...but it gives you that 24 hours just to be with the baby..dykwim?

It's not as simple as 'hospital safe, home birth dangerous'. Sadly you ain't necessarily safe in hospital, as those poor women at Northwick Park found out.

I gave birth in hospital. In a midwife-led unit that was just the other side of the floor from the hospital unit should anything go wrong. Innocent old me assumed this was the best of both worlds. Not realising that NHS managers think it's fine to staff delivery wards with ONE midwife to seven women in labour. On both the 'midwife-led' AND hospital side.

Had anything gone wrong, ds and I would have been in real trouble despite being in hospital. As it was, I had a third degree tear thanks to the midwife not being there when I felt the overwhelming urge to push (too soon, not that I knew that at the time).

Frankly we'd have been much better off with a home birth as I'd have had a midwife in attendance. Had anything gone wrong, the ambulance crew could have taken me to any one of three different hospitals, hopefully one with more than one midwife on duty.

daftpunk - mine was at St Thomas's too.

I didn't get 24 hours of rest in hospital at all. I was kicked out the same day and I was told it was to cut costs so they only had to wash 1 lot of bedding and provide me with 1 mouldy sandwich.

I had much more rest at home.

Yes daftpunk - I do know what you mean. Would rather spend that 24 hours with baby in my own bed though while DH does some supervised tidying and looks after the other DCs (perhaps that's why DH wants me to opt for the hospital birth this time round )

I am choosing to go into hospital this time purely because I feel there are a few more risks attached to the birth (my last two were at home). Rest is definitely not an influencing factor though! Am planning to leave and get home within two hours if everything goes well...

"but it gives you that 24 hours just to be with the baby..dykwim? "

oh god I couldn't WAIT to get out when I had DS3 - had him at 4.17, placenta at 5pm - was home by 9.30pm - SO nice to be in my own bed, on my own comfortable sofa with my own decent coffee to drink

The idea of a natural birth in hospital is great, but how many people actually manage it? The stats from my local hospital are 30+% caesarian and only 37% "normal" birth in the last set of figures (2006). There is an MLU but it can only take two labouring women at a time so if it's full, up to the main ward with you. I had a home birth and my husband is a doctor, to begin with he was against the idea as it's our first and I've got an 'untried pelvis' but is now convinced that in situations like ours (low risk, hospital under half an hour away) it's definitely worth promoting.

The hospital also had numerous wards closed with norovirus when DD was arriving - which is something I'd prefer to avoid if at all possible. The main factor for us was knowing that if we tried HB and then wanted to go to hospital that option was always open. Once you go to hospital you can't turn round and say, actually everything is fine, I'd much rather do this with a midwife I know in my own home.