To DEMAND the birth I want not what I have been told I can have??

[BigMomma3]

No am not selfish or reckless or irresponsible btw, but as this WILL be my last baby (4th) I want a good experience without the intervention of harrassed midwives and arrogant doctors that I have had before. I hate the feeling of losing control over what to do with my own body and my experience of staying in hospital after birth has been terrible . I have been told I am high risk so will have to give birth in hospital, cannot use birthing pool etc la la la. The reasons I am high risk are:

1. Previous pre-eclampsia at 39+5 weeks (1st baby 13 years ago) so was induced with no pain relief (too terrified to have an epidural), very painful, midwife telling me to quieten down and trying to get me to lay on my back with legs in stirrups (most indignified way to give birth ever). Pre-eclampsia may or may not happen again, even 'low' risk women can get this.
2. DD2 had serious problems which we found out about at 30 weeks so was stillborn after doctor did a sweep in induce labour(again doctor grabbed my legs to get me in stirrups, telling me that I should be looking forward to having this baby (did not bother reading notes before she came in) . Now they have put down that I have a history of premature birth due to this when it was initiated on purpose . Obviously any problems with this baby would be picked up before the birth so it's really irrelevant.
3. History of twins (DSs1&2) - why does that make me high risk? Obviously I would not go into labour not knowing whether I am having 1 or 2 babies so that should not really affect the birth either.
4. Previous c section - that was elective due to twins being in wrong places - nobody will know if I will need one again until the last few weeks or so of the pregnancy.

Obviously if I have any issues with blood pressure, heart rates etc I will do as I'm told but I object to being told by my midwife 'oooh I doubt they'll let you do that' when I said I wanted as 'back to basic's' a birth as possible with an ideally, HOME VBAC water birth. So AIBU to march into my consultant's office next week and tell him how I want it to be and stick to my guns unless problems arise that need intervention??

when my waters broke at 6cm , there was mec.stained liquor, but no other signs of foetal distress, and as labour was progressing, nothing was done.

each situation has to be evaluated , but i think midwifery , as well as all medicine and health care, is practised more and more defensively and the parameters of normal and low risk become narrower and narrower

Libra: yes, I do think that women who choose HB educate themselves more about the birthing process, personally, I think natural birthing should be explained in secondary schools. My education told me that you go into hospital to have a baby, but luckily my aunt had 2 babies at home when I was 6 and 8 so that was also the norm in my mind.

Again I strongly recommend pregnant women read Dr Michel Odent's book to understand what happens to the body during labour, and how delicate the balance of hormones are. His latest one 'The Farmer and The Obstetrician' draws a parallel between industrialising farming and industrialising child birth.

One of the problems of going along the 'what if' train of thought is that promotes fear, and fear itself can stop labour.

BTW, whilst in the UK it's considered 40 weeks is term, in France it's 42. My homeopath told me it's quite safe to go to 43 weeks. Basically, the baby and body know when the right time is.

Your homeopath told you it was quite safe to go to 43 weeks? Well then it MUST be true...

Yeah as a hippy hypno/home birthing type I was with you NJWS right up until you said "homeopath". They are the "water has memory" snake oil types aren't they?

lol at homeopath

Did you know there's lots and lots of research to suggest the foetal monitoring in labour does very little or nothing to improve outcomes if there is a problem?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245926/Mother-butchered-like-piece-meat-midwife-botched-home-birth .html

That is unfortunately the problem with independent midwives - no insurance. So if something goes wrong and your baby happens to need specialist care for the rest of its life, you will not get any compensation.

Would that have happened in a hospital? (Genuine question)

Well if it had been in a hospital they would have called a doctor for sure. Doesn't mean for certain that it would have been a better outcome, but I would have said highly likely. Plus, she would have been entitled to compensation if they had fucked it up.

From that DM link, she sounds like an absolutely dreadful MW. No back up?

Interesting that she is charged with inducing the birth with no medical reason, didn't know that was an offence! It's routine in a hospital setting.

It sounds from that account as if the very big baby had shoulder dystocia. There was only one MW there and the mother was in a pool. With two MW, I think they could have done more moving about to open her pelvis etc.

But the problem isn't so much the lack of insurance as dreadfully bad practice on the part of this individual MW. It's no reflection on HB or even IM as a whole, any more than an individual hospital MW or doctor committing an offence is a reflection on hospital births.

If you have GD, you should follow a really strict diet (no sugar at all, not even fruit, a friend of mine did it.) While it will be recommended to happen in hosptial, HB should be safe too. The issue (obviously only going from the article) appears to be that the MW lacked knowledge and skill - to not have a second MW there is . From the sounds of the article, I don't think the ante-natal care was there - she should have been closely looked after in terms of sugar etc. in order to prevent the massive baby. Dealing with the GD side effects at birth is a massive case of closing the door after the horse is gone!

It depends on the IM, but you can totally come out of the NHS system. They can refer you back in though.

Again, it's about controlling the GD, to miniimise the risk to the baby. Blood sugar is pretty easy to check though, you don't need a lab, and baby can be transferred PDQ.

I don't think it's the HB that's the issue in that case, it's the (alleged) gross incompetence of the MW.

Well, it says they're campaigning for insurance, so maybe.

I had doctors telling me my last birth was dangerous, without examination or asking about history. It wasn't. Because they do a one-size fits all model, based on averages. Honestly, they don't help their cause when they do that. (Like the SHO who told me my baby would die if I went over 42 weeks. That is a lie. Why should I believe anything else she said?) So basically, because of that, women who maybe would be safer in hospital are so used to fighting idiotic protocols that they don't recognise actual problems.

I wonder if the woman was told a HB would be dangerous but carried on anyway.

I've know women be "refused" a homebirth by the NHS for medical reasons so they've employed an IM to have one anyway.

All the more reason to give birth in hospital I suppose where at least there would be more than one midwife to rely on.

I think after reading that, an elective ceasarean may be the way to go anyway! I think that because I've been through most birth scenarios already (VD with pethidine, VD with epidural, elective ceasarean) I am changing my mind constantly at the moment and have no idea how I'm going to feel come July!!

"or had she set up a lab in the kitchen to analyse bloods etc"

Can and is done in seconds with a hand-held device.

Anyway - most GD is diet controlled. As long as mums blood sugars are carefully controlled and are regularly monitored the risks aren't significant for baby. Issues are different for mums with insulin controlled GD, or for mums whose GD set in early in pregnancy. This isn't the case for most gd mums though.

I think if you are prone to having big babies anyway, and then developed GD (which exacerbates that particular problem) there does come a point at which it makes more sense to be in hospital or ? if available ? at a midwife-led unit near/attached to the hospital.

I agree with naccetymac that the main issue here is the incompetence of the MW, who clearly panicked, but wouldn?t mum have been better off with more supervision, in this particular instance?

Sorry - want to add on the subject of the 'midwife butchers mum' story, currently in the news.......

I also had gd, also large baby (11lbs), also had IM.

Difference is in my situation that I 1) had a second midwife for the delivery 2) was aware of the 'drills' the midwives use to resolve shoulder dystocia and had discussed this issue with my midwife prior to labour 3) had my MIL (an A&E nurse with 20 years experience) downstairs, ready to call the ambulance (had taped address and all relevant details to phone to avoid panic if emergency services needed).

I think my midwife would have strongly discouraged me from trying to give birth in a pool. I can't understand why she didn't have a second midwife there for the birth, and why the mother was encouraged to feel it was ok to deliver in the pool, given that SD was a distinct possibility.

I experience an SD at my homebirth, but it was so much better managed by the sound of it. Midwives didn't panic at all, and ambulance was there in less than 3 minutes (and sent away as not needed).

Feel so sorry for the mum in the story. And the midwife. And the dad. Must have been a horrible, horrible experience for everyone involved. Nightmarish.

"I've know women be "refused" a homebirth by the NHS for medical reasons so they've employed an IM to have one anyway."

I didn't think the NHS could refuse anyone a home birth if the mother insisted regardless of their advice. I thought they were legally obliged to send a midwife over.