to think home births are selfish?

[woozlet]

I just watched a 'desperate midwives' that I had recorded and there was a home birth on it which went wrong. It worked out ok in the end and the baby was ok. But I was really scared watching it, it just seemed like an unnecessary risk to take.

The resources do indeed need to be increased to support all choices. Particularly given the rise in the birth rate in some parts of the UK. I have heard horror stories from friends giving birth (however method) in London in last three years.

NL does have very high rate of home births. In the surrounding countries hospital births are the norm and take up of pain relief rather higher than in the UK. Infant/maternal mortality rates not noticeably different between NL and surrounding countries and rather better than in parts of UK (suggesting however you give birth not that much 'riskier' - it is index of deprivation that starts to have large effect). Incidently Dutch women as a group amongst tallest and largest women in world.

NB no statistics on chandelier swingers ( as it were)

IMLH - you can't have it both ways. Either home births are cheaper or they use less NHS resources, which is it?

I've certainly heard less HB horror stories than hospital birth horror stories. The HB horror stories I have heard have been stories like mine where the HCP's involved haven't done their jobs properly.

IMLH - sorry, ignore the first part of my last post. Stupid baby kept me up all night and I'm so tired i might die. It makes no sense, does it?

Genuine question - do you get different 'types' of midwife attending you during a home birth than if you were in hospital? What if you get a shit one? In a hospital there would at least be others, and doctors, around to overrule them but if you were at home with them you would be stuck with them, no?

theyoungvisiter - you could be right about the crash section thing, but there's always that possibility, isn't there, that you might be one of those few. Much more problematic if you're at home. As for medical negligence, it's difficult enough to prove as it is. If you've chosen to have your baby in a place with no consultants etc. around then the midwife can't be blamed because she doesn't have the medical knowledge of a consultant. So something could go wrong that is out of her experience, and she doesn't notice, and that wouldn't be her fault.

NB I meant largest limbed (cloggies). they are certainly not amongst the most obese - higher rate in this country alas.

Inmylittlehead - Tafkaa posted this on page 1:

"Since the 2007 review, a study of 529,688 low-risk planned home and hospital births was reported in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 2009. The study concluded:
A home birth does not increase the risks of perinatal mortality and severe perinatal morbidity among low risk women, provided the maternity care system facilitiates this choice through the availability of well-trained midwives and through a good transportation and referral system. [15]
Further, the study noted there was evidence that low risk women with a planned home birth are less likely to experience referral to secondary care and subsequent obstetric interventions than those with a planned hospital birth. [16] The study has been criticised on several grounds, including that some data might be missing and that the findings may not be representative of other populations. [17]"

This study supports the research that I read when planning homebirths with ds2 and ds3. I don't have the studies to hand, but if I recall correctly, the writers believed that, in some cases, homebirth was actually safer than hospital birth, because of the lower incidence of interventions. One intervention can lead to another and another, in a cascade of interventions that might not have been necessary in the first place.

OP - I think you are very unreasonable to make such a sweeping generalisation about ALL homebirths, based on one homebirth. If the mother in the programme you saw did refuse to go to hospital, then yes, that was selfish - but it is ridiculous to suggest that everyone who wants a home birth would react in the same way, if told they needed to go to hospital. Personally, I utterly trusted my midwives, and if they had told me we needed to go to hospital, we would have gone at once - and I believe that the vast majority of people who want/have homebirths would do the same.

Would you acknowledge though that one to one care from a midwife in hospital would very likely reduce the rate of intervention and so at the moment to compare statistics is misleading as these women are not labouring on a level playing field (as it were).

I don't think that having a home birth is selfish, each to their own and all that, but I do think that sometimes some women get caught up in the birth and lose sight of the fact its a process to have a baby.

I could never have a homebirth as my son
(who is 13 weeks old) wouldnt come out and the midwifes at the hospital were sure he would in the end, I protested as something just didnt feel right and in the end had an em c-section and found I was trying to push out an 11lbs 9oz baby who was back to back, none of which was known depiste being checked by two midwifes who were with me during labour. Bit scary to think what would have happened if I had been at home.

I don't have a chandelier. I do have a four poster bed though - could maybe rig something up?

Isn't it funny, this thread is actually making me feel a lot better about a homebirth instead of going to hospital!

Ooops - hit post too soon.

I also meant to say this to the OP:

I have seen programmes and heard accounts where hospital births have gone horribly wrong - does that mean that any woman deciding to give birth in hospital is being selfish?

Of course it doesn't.

I was one of those few with a crash section. 15 mins to noticing a problem to birth. Thank God!

Should be 'midwives' not midwifes.

Do bear in mind that a TV programme maker's remit is to make a sensational, dramatic programme, not necessarily a realistic one. They are very clever at editing and what you saw may not be an accurate representation of what happened - I have done a radio interview in the past where they edited it to make it sound as though I was arguing the absolute opposite from what I was actually saying!!

Well, actually being cheaper and using less NHS resources aren't mutually contradictory.

Cheaper = costs the NHS less.

No?

IMLH - there is a higher level of training and experience needed to attend a homebirth.

I can't remember what it is precisely, but I think it's something like 5 years minimum practicing, before you can attend homebirths. I believe you also need to be trained in resus and other techniques that hospital MW wouldn't need to know.

But I'm not an expert - so perhaps Lulu or Marsy can say for sure, I am not 100% certain.

Certainly all the MWs I saw on my homebirth team had more than 10 years experience, in contrast to some of the ones when I had a hospital birth who were straight out of college and quite nervy and gauche (it seemed to me). And they were all much more clued up about my situation and risk factors.

YABU. If giving birth is about the baby, then tell that to hostpital staff.

During my 2 hostpital births my babies were subjected to unnecessary distress because they were in hotpital.

DD had a much easier birth, becaasue she was born at home.

And I don't think it's selfish to forgo pethedine/epidural to ensure your baby has an easier birth!

And I don't think you can justify saying homebirth is selfish from who incident you saw on TV.

I would absolutely agree that there needs to be better staffing and monitoring in hospital BTW.

I think high-risk women get a shockingly raw deal (having been one in my first pg).

But this is absolutely NOT the fault of women having home births and the solution is not to berate those women as selfish.

The solution to that is to campaign for better MW provision for ALL women.

No, that's incorrect theyoungvisitor, there are no minimum levels of experience for attending a homebirth. Generally trusts prefer midwives to have worked for a few years before going out on the community but it's not unheard of for newly qualifieds to go straight out.

Also - ALL midwives do resus training!! The paeds don't sit outside the door at each birth you know, there can often be several minutes wait for one to arrive.

I wouldn't have one personally. My mother had me (quite a large baby) in hospital without too much difficulty. So had second child at home - was the norm then - turned out baby was significantly larger, baby okay but mother suffered severe blood loss and had to be rushed to hospital. Basically doc said that had parents not recently moved from village to centre of Exeter ie v nr hospital she would have died. Now of course these days the size of the baby should be picked up (although the last MW to examine me was wildly out) but my mother would have panicked if I had told her I was having a HB, and I thought it best not to. But that was my own decision for me. not anyone else.

I should have had a home birth for my ds2, in retrospect, as what I ended up having was an unplanned ambulance birth! (We went into hospital and were sent home again then things speeded up very quickly, as they had done in my previous birth).
It would have been cheaper for the NHS because they wouldn't have needed to send out an ambulance, and I'd have had a midwife there which is always a good thing....

LOL at size of baby should be picked up. My last pregnancy I had serial growths scan and was predicted a 7 1/2lb-er. He was 10lb 130oz!!

I think the statistics on intervention are misleading.

Bibbity, it is not misleading - it is what we have to deal with and make our decisions on here and now - level or not it is what we have.

It would be interesting to do a study comparing HB and Hospital births attended in similar manners however even if we did the study it would be mostly meaningless from a practical POV because HB and hospital are not attended in the same way on a day to day basis.

Daisymoo - happy to be corrected.

My MW definitely told me there was a higher level of experience and training needed for HBs but possibly she was just explaining what her hospital policy was.

My main reason for not having one is DH's reluctance. He really isn't keen, and that needs to be taken into account.

I did hypnobirthing with great success with the boy and will be doing it again with this one, but I need DH 100% on board and calm for that to all work.