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

[Floopy21]

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

I had a home birth this time because being in hospital was such a vile, stressfull, un-restful experience when I had DS, 3 years ago. Noisy, hot wards, snippy midwives with too much to do who snap at you and make you feel like a nuisance, other people's vile visitors, bloody photographers touting for business...

I also felt very strongly that I was medicated for the convenience of the staff and had a clasically bad on-my-back, continuously-monitored, epidural, episiotomy, ventouse birth because that was what the system worked towards by not offering help and support with active labour.

I also think the point is we've become very complacent with regards to birth, it's a difficult business and not every mother and child will survive, no matter where they are but of course we forget that.

I always thought hospital over birth at home - until I gave birth that is!
One midwife running between me and another couple of women, one induction failing at the most critical point and the knowledge that you get TWO midwives if you give birth at home has changed my perspective somewhat!

FAQ - my baby is due in a couple of weeks and I REALLY hope my experience is similar to yours...I'm sure my DC will be born at about 4am though(which is when the others were)which may complicate matters!

Oooh those photographers!!

jumpjockey - those are the kind of statistics that really worry me. 37% natural birth rate for a hospital is shockingly low. Yes, some women need interventions for medical reasons - but not THAT many. And likewise, a CS rate of around 30% is shockingly high.

I can see exactly how women can end up having interventions that they don't medically NEED. When I had my VBAC, I was hooked up to a monitor, I ended up with an electrode on my baby's scalp in utero, and TBH the doctor (and midwife) were pushing me towards an epidural and even starting to talk about another CS. Not for any medical need, but because the whole culture of the place.

It's a shite article and she's talking nonsense. It's deliberately worded to be provocative and to put people's backs up.

It's interesting how people talk of not wanting to take a risk of a home birth when they are happy to take the risk of a hospital one. There are risks attached to both, they're just different ones. It is actually statistically safer to have a HB with a normal low risk pregnancy.

As for having time with my baby after birth... 24 hours in a hospital to be with my baby or 24 hours at home in my own bed curled up with my baby having had a lovely hot shower/bath? Decisions decisions.

Each to their own, but I've had both and the HB was far more pleasant. I am neither spoilt nor complacent, nor do I wear sandals (other than in summer). As for bf-ing til secondary school... what a pathetic comment to make. I can't believe this woman got paid for such a rubbish piece of writing.

I had a home birth, I'm not a sandal wearing hippy, quite the opposite in fact, and also crap at breast feeding.

I'm not against hospital births and also not against medical intervention. A home birth was purely more practical for me. I also did my research and knew that the risks were were very low. Had my pregnancy turned into a higher risk one I would have gone to hospital.

It annoys me that people assume that I was putting my baby in danger by choosing to have a hb.

are birth plans still around? my youngest is 8..so not sure?....you could write down exactly what you wanted..how much intervention etc.

I also have experienced hospital and home birth.

Home birth one million times better

I have to say I had much more one to one care at home than in hospital. My hospital birth was much more risky than my home birth. I was monitored and cared for a lot more at home than in hospital. My son was born distressed and needing more care in hospital. My daughter was born very peacefully at home. My son had a much lower apgar. Ok so different births but still.

Just my experiences and realise I may have been lucky. I also would never suggest anyone had a home birth if they did not want to. The article is ridiculously degrading though.

Yes birth plans are around daftpunk, but how far your midwife/doctor will follow them is dependent on many factors, such as staffing levels, time of day (or night), general culture and practice of the hospital...

When I had my VBAC I had virtually no choice about where to deliver. The midwife led unit wouldn't take me as I was 'high risk'. I could have stuck my neck out and insisted on a home birth, but with a prior CS I wasn't prepared to risk my baby. That's how I ended up in a large hospital. The experience was dreadful. I had a birth plan - I made it clear that I didn't want any intervention that wasn't necessary medically. I told them that I didn't want an epidural (I had given birth to my first baby in a midwife unit without one, so I knew I could cope with high levels of pain). However, even as an experienced third time mum, I felt far less listened to and in control than I had with my first baby, so I can well imagine how a first timer might feel. I managed to avoid the epidural, and DID have a natural birth but it wasn't pleasant.

The fact remains that most pregnancies and births are straightforward, and the best place for these births to happen is not necessarily a hospital where the staff are more geared up towards emergencies and problems, because however much you try to make a hospital a comfortable and homely environment, at the end of the day the mindset of the staff and the general practice in the hospital is going to be geared towards things that go wrong rather than things that go right.

I have only read the first page of this thread, and expected to see exactly what I saw, in terms of arguments supporting and condemning the article.

I had a home birth. I don't think people should have homebirths if they feel safer in hospital. I don't think people should be pushed into hospital, if they have a low risk pregnancy and would feel safer at home. It's about choice.

What gets me is the way the article is written and the inflammatory language she uses. But as someone else has already said, more and more Times articles seem to be going this way, to cause a divide and boost sales and spark debate. That's fine too. Which is why I don't take offence, actually, as I think debate is good and the more that homebirths are discussed, the more people are able to open their eyes to them. If you are anti-homebirth and believe that you need to be in hospital to have a good, safe birth, then you are unlikely to be turned in the other direction. It's the women like me who didn't really know that there WAS another option out there, until I got pregnant for the first time. So the more it's talked about, the better, I believe.

I would imagine that for every home birth disaster, there is botched hospital delivery.

I had one hospital birth, where I laboured alone for a whole night, dazed by pethidine, during a labour that lasted nearly 38 hours. I then went on to have two homebirths - which were both long (though thankfully not as long as the first one), where I was never left alone unless I wanted time by myself - and more importantly I never felt unsupported - in fact, I had an NCT coffee morning whilst in labour with ds3.

Afterwards I was able to have a bath in my own bathroom, and rest in my own bed, which was infinitely more comfortable than a plastic-covered hospital mattress on a single bed, and much more peaceful than a hospital ward - even after the other dses came back.

What incensed me most about the article was the implied insult to the community midwives who do homebirths - if people who have home births are turning their backs on:

" wonderful things like blood transfusions, anaesthetic, surgery, antiseptic techniques and obstetric technology"

• then what does she think that the midwives who attend home births are doing? Rupturing the membranes with a ragged fingernail kept long for the purpose? Advocating grasping a knotted sheet for pain management?

They are highly trained and experienced professionals who are more than capable of dealing with a normal birth and caring for the health and safety of both mother and baby.

And her language throughout the article was inflammatory - hospital birth is "intelligent, progressive and logical" whilst home birth is "spoilt and complacent" and "whimsical and perverse".

I did my research before choosing home birth - it's just a shame Melanie Reid doesn't appear to have done any before writing this article.

I had ds in hospital, and I was certainly one of those people who said 'he would have died had I not been in hospital' - as his heart rate dropped and needed ventouse. But I have thought about it, and now think the epidural slowed down my body's natural way of labouring.

I'm now planning a hb with my second due in August. It's funny how all my friends are either jealous or encouraging or both, yet my family are the ones who are worried for me. I'm doing my research and am getting a doula, and if I have to go into hospital mid-labour then I won't hesitate.

Excellent post Stayingsunny.

It also brings to mind the interesting chats I had with the midwives in the Midwife-led unit where I first gave birth. (NB - they had time to chat - they actually used to bring my cups of tea and sit and chat during night feeds!). The general consensus was that the midwives felt that delivering women in the unit or at home was the pinnacle of their career. It was what they aspired to. Many of them had started in big hospitals, and felt themselves truly fortunate to have landed what they felt was the creme de la creme of midwifery jobs. Precisely because working in this environment enabled them to use their extensive knowledge and skills without being overuled or talked down to by doctors,and because they got to do what they were actually trained to do - ie support a woman entirely through the labour and birth process, using encouragement and support, rather than sticking a woman on a monitor or a drip and then dashing off to the next patient.

When I had my first baby, I knew that whichever midwife happened to be on duty when labour started, I would know her, because it was a small team who also did all the antenatal appointments. The midwife with me most of the time actually stayed on past her shift because I was so close to delivering. She was wonderful. She did everything, right through to the stitches afterwards. The only role played by a doctor was when they called in the duty doctor from the local surgery because it was a very long second stage and it looked like I might need forceps. He got scrubbed up and hovered in a corner and actually wasn't needed as the amazing midwife talked me throught the final pushes which got my baby out. I have no doubt that in a hospital I wouldn't have been allowed to labour so long, I'd probably have been pushed into an epidural and then ended up with forceps and in the worst case scenario could have been left feeling I hadn't coped well.

The midwives who deliver home births are absolute professionals - this article is incredibly biased and very badly written.

I suspect that there may be a secret government agenda around at the moment to promote home births because they are cheaper.

My mum told me how when she had her 3 children in the 1960s it was COMPULSORY to have a home birth for all normal pregnancies after the first one. She was really unhappy as she really wanted to go to hospital and wasn't allowed! She can remember the cardboard box containing the home birth "kit" being delivered and thinking "oh s**t!"

So I think we should be grateful that we are now allowed to give birth in hospital when we want!

Picante - you make a really good point. If I'd had my first baby in hospital I might well have said the same: 'Oh her heart rate was dipping, I had to have an epidural and forceps, thank god I was in hospital or she could have died!'

Fact is, I didn't need to be, as I proved. But I think if you go down this route then you end up justifying to yourself that you did need to.

There is a big difference between genuine risky pregnancies/births (and I know they exist - my dc2 was saved by being delivered by CS so I know that has it's place). But things have swung too far - women are led to believe that birth is hugely risky and that it should be seen as a medical rather than a natural event, and I can't see how that helps anyone, mothers or babies.

No way would I want a home birth.

The article is a pile of shite though.

And one bizarre comment at the end:

"With The Buxton Handclap Method at the onset of labour, the birth canal is held open by the hands of the deliverer. The head of the baby can be kept from being crushed in the birth canal, and so will end up with a higher IQ. It is used in some places in the Third World because it is low tech."

So says Andy in Hatfield. WTF is he on about??!!! (Note he)

I think its a very stupid article.

The stuff she was saying about being spoilt and turning their backs on modern technology is just so ridiculous she is making herself look like a bit of a fool. There are pros and cons to everything and we are all different so its just obvious that we will make different choices about something so personal.

We are all doing what we feel most comfortable with so what is the problem? I'm not hurting myself, my baby, or (generic) you by choosing a home birth after a low risk pregnancy and a smooth first labour. Neither is another women who chooses to go into hospital. Jeez.

I hate it when a woman like that speaks on my behalf and tells the rest of the world what 'we' British women are like, what we like and dislike etc.

I'm all for home births, if you can get one & that's what you want go for it!

I actually wholeheartedly agree with her, but would never have written that article, because to put it into a journalistic piece in a major newspaper makes it something more than a private opinion: it is publicly putting homebirths down - and thus indirectly saying that hospital births are 'great', which they are certainly not for many women.

I happen to think that hospital would be the safest and best place for the majority of women to give birth if there were some changes made to maternity services in this country and all women had access to a good, midwife led unit attached to a good hospital. Unfortunately, underfunding, short staffing and the general filth in lots of hospitals means this often isn't the case.

buxton handclap? eh??

the head is not crushed, it can be moulded , yes. but not crushed in the birth canal. the vagina is stretchy and the baby's head is mouldable, the plates of the skull can move ..

at the onset of labour, the baby;s head would not be in the birth canal, so it seems a bit of an odd practice.