Homebirth dilema

[knittakid]

I am 28 weeks today, expecting our first. I have had no complications whatsoever so far and am healthy and active.

Me and my partner have been planning a home birth and feel that it'd be the right thing to do.

However, I expected lots of opposition from my family, and here lies my problem:
Just got an email from my aunt who lives in Spain and has lots of friends having babies at the mo and in the recent past. She's written all these horror stories, basically each one of her friends ended up needing immediate medical attention, whithout which they or baby would have died. She's told me not to play with the future of my baby, that i could make him terribly disabled or kill him by having him at home.

This is obviously something I have thought about, but have been reassured by research and litterature. But I do not want to endanger the baby in any way, that's why I'm not cycling anymore.

She's also brought up the issue of her and my mother's cesareans (for all of us, no natural births in my immediate family since 1950) saying that I have narrow hips, etc.
I grew up thinking that there was just something wrong with women in my family, but after reading lots and lots and listening to their stories I've come to the conclusion that they just went to hospital too soon and sufered too many interventions (not helped by a knife-happy culture in southamerica, where some countries have 80% c-section rates!!!).

To end, I am just very upset by her email, and don't know what to do, and the only thing I can do right now is cry.

I am a size 6/8 too with narrow hips and gave birth to an 8 pounder at home before the arrival of the midwives. Less than 2 hrs of labour and no vaginal trauma. In fact, I did not even push. once she began to descend into the vagina, she was out with 3 contractions.

natal hynotherapy cd in the last 8 weeks or so, ina may and the Waterbirth book by janet balaskas were all I used.

best of luck for the rest of your pregnancy.

Staying at home is more likely to keep you intervention free.

have a look at these 2 sites for future reference too:

www.spinningbabies.com
www.mybirth.tv (positive messages about birthing to counteract the negative stereotypes we have in our media and culture)
how dilated am I?

Oh I kept my placenta too. I also photographed it because it was a velamentous cord insertion and apparently a very good example of one.

Yes, sorry no Hugh F-W party possibilities. I wanted to plant it under a tree (why? no idea).

Seems like all pregnant women hear tons of hideous and scary birth stories. For what it's worth, birth is definitely not always arduous. Mine were quick (6 hours from first faint twinge to bingo, baby)and weren't even painful.

My friend was in the house, with her three kids, for the second as DH was still on his way home from far, far, away. She swears that she only knew that DS had arrived when she heard the two midwives cross-checking the time for the certificate. My DD was happily playing in the living room throughout.

Ooh foxytoxin how did you manage that? My otherwise lovely midwives came over all wicked witch when I asked.

They were putting it in a hazard waste bag which I hated the thought f(that thing nurtured a human being it didn't seem right) so I asked for it and they just went 'really'?

They may have felt like they didn't have a choice too as I had to fight for a home birth and seeing I had written everyone including the chief executive expecting my right to a home birth be respected, they were not going to argue with me over a placenta.

if you look on my profile you can see my VCI placenta. apparently the main risk in VCI is artificial rupture of membranes which could damage a blood vessel causing the baby to bleed to death. No one tells you about that risk when they propose ARM. I was like this when I read that a few days after giving birth.

Ooh speaking of things you discover AFTER giving birth, I was in huge trouble with midwife the day after DD was born. Why? Because I took the dog for a walk the afternoon of the birth; on my own; to the woods. She was livid and explained I could have haemorrhaged. Not even occurred to DH & me.

Good example of how birth can a) be complication-free and b) temporarily make you a bit thick.

p.s. foxytoxin: profile? whassat? v interested to see pictures.

OP - don't blame you for not wanting to cycle (as much) in Bristol with all those hills! I'm in the notoriously-flat Oxford .

Re your question - I don't know whether I avoided intervention by labouring at home; maybe, but all the time I was at home I was technically not in labour, because i was only 2 cm dilated. Of course it felt like labour to me, but I'd have been sent back home if I'd gone to hospital, I expect. Perhaps if I'd insisted they might have offered me something, not sure.

I also had a doula and she was amazing, really helped through all the labouring at home, and in the hospital too. Plus she drove us to the hospital which was good!

I think it's very difficult, if you have had a difficult or traumatic birth experience - where medical intervention saved you/your baby - to bite your lip around first time mums planning a homebirth, because you are so aware of what can go wrong.

I have a very good friend who is expecting her first baby and is going for a homebirth. I had a very traumatic first birth (planned a natural water birth and 'did everything right', but it all ended in an emergency situation and was all quite scary) and an emergency section with my second (again, had planned a natural, low-intervention birth and became a world bloody expert on active labour and VBAC!). I have to be very measured when she asks my opinion / advice, and careful not to project my own experiences on to her.

Biting lips is the only way forward. I think your aunt was very misguided. Scaring the living daylights out of you isn't going to achieve anything. Wherever and however you choose to labour, it is your choice (or should be) and you need support and understanding. I hope your partner can give you this. x

So with all those narrow hips, what happened before 1950? Did every woman die in childbirth? Or did they mostly manage ok? Has evolution hastened suddenly to produce a strange medical-dependency in just your family?

If you have a supportive MW then I would go with the plan for a Homebirth. MWs are trained to advise when a homebirth is and isn't a good idea; most MWs love them but will not advise you to go ahead if they have any sense that all is not well.

Cord around the neck: AFAIK, it's dealt with same at home as it is at hospital.

I imagine that when head pops out with cord around the neck, baby can't breathe yet anyway (lungs too squashed). Baby is still getting oxygen supply thru the tummy & cord anyway (it's the placenta coming out first that would be a huge problem, and that would be preceded by lengthly high blood loss no MW could miss). The tricky thing with cord-on-neck is not to break it at this point because baby is not breathing yet and the blood loss for mother wold be high. So there is only way to deal with it, in hospital or at home: to gently lift it around the head with a finger.

Ragged,

It is not quite so simple as that. We just had our second son delivered by forceps in theatre due to quite dramatic decels (80/50 towards the end).

Cord compression causes the decels and he had the cord around his neck. The head was still too far up the birth canal for the cord to be lifted away.

The consultant did insist on my wife changing posture when she was pushing on her front and that made things worse, so it is possible she would have delivered safely at home, but also possible that she would not have.

I asked the midwife what would have happened had it been a homebirth and she said we would have transferred to hospital at the first sign of decellerations, so it would have been alright (as we are only about 10 mins away from hospital). I guess proximity to hospital is one of the key ingredients in the safety of homebirth. Also, you do have to think how you would feel about being transferred when in late stage labour.

I don't really blame my aunt for not bitting her lips, she's just very concerned, but in my opinion in a misguided way, the trouble is that she's very very stubborn! but with friends, deffinetly bitting lips is the way to go!

ragged indeed the hips thing is something I've worked really hard in my mind to erase from my head, as it was something that i grew up listening to and have now read enough to know it only actually exists in a small number of cases. I truly believe their failure to progress was due to going to hospital too soon and sufering all the interventions that come from an obstetrics-based care (no mws in southamerican hospitals). But I guess it touched a nerve anyway. As far as I understand, FTP at home would mean more time labouring to see if it is actually that, or just nerves and fear.

very interesting about the cord things, thanks!

foxy sorry had to go and check what was VCI, I guess that was really lucky, so glad it was!

I have returned to my usual MN name. check my profile now.

wow foxy that is amazing!

Just wanted to thank you all for your support, it has really helped more than you can imagine!

Bumping up with a successful homebirth story. Funnily enough, my labour started on 4 December only an hour and a half after I'd finished reading the thread. I spent the a good portion of my labour on all fours on our stairs with DH contorting himself in order to feed me satsumas.

My midwife was lovely, low-key, patient, and calm. I laboured for a little less than 12 hours and my daughter was born on our bedroom floor. She was fine, and I was fine (no stitches necessary).

Good luck with yours!

Congratulations LLKH.

And well done for having no stitches .