Is it unrealistic to hope for a home birth first time?

[shinyshilling]

Is it unrealistic to hope for a home birth first time?

I have been very calm throughout my pregnancy and only have 7 weeks to go (on Saturday). I have booked a pool for a home birth, but the more people I tell, the more they laugh and say that I am a 'wishful thinker'. They seem to suggest as this is my first baby that I am bound to go over my dates (New Year's Eve). Even my mw who has been really supportive said last week that she 'only hopes that I don't go over and have to be induced.' How much lee-way should I expect before hospital intervention (which I really, really don't want)? Can I refuse it or would this be foolish and endanger my baby?

I would just suggest that you stay positive but realistic. Some first babies do come early (mine did) and then you'll be okay but I think most hospitals allow you to go 14 days over. My second baby was late and the 14 days took me to a friday and the hospital dont like to induce on a friday so I was told it would be monday. As it happened, DD arrived just 12 days late so it was irrelevant.

I'm sure I've read on here of someone going about 3 weeks over, refusing to be induced and everything being fine. Not sure you'll be allowed to be at home though but all health authorities seem to have different rules.

I had a home birth with my second but lots of people have home births for their first.
Keep focused and ignore the negative comments huh?

Good luck.

they/you can decide on induciton nearer the time, unless you;re really late shouldn't be an issue, so try not to worry.Policy varies depending on hospital.
I booked for home birth both times - 1st time didn;t work out (failure to progress so ds born in hosp after labouring at home) but 2nd did! really depends on luck/position of baby/mw support etc - I had a brilliant midwife (NHS) this time round and she made home birth possible.
therefore, should be no reason why it doesn;t work out for you but best to keep an open mind about having to go in at the last min if advised to.

My first came 15 days early and to be honest if I had wanted to a home birth would have been fine (only had gas and air short labour etc) however, I bowed down to mostly DP who was terrified of anything going wrong and had the baby in a hospital which has put me off hospitals now.

Am pregnant with no 2 now and hoping for a homebirth, my situation is slightly different in that I can only have a homebirth if I get to 39 weeks as thats their policy with regards to midwife cover ie only allowed to cover each woman for 3 weeks. So I'm hoping this one won't be as impatient as her sister.

Best of luck and don't worry too much about being induced just yet plenty of time for that when your a week overdue.

I HATED the way everyone scoffed at the idea of a homebirth for 1st baby. I hated the sneery 'oh ho, you really have no idea, have you' response. Not from mw, but from men, mostly, and other mums.

In the end, DS was 6 days late, and we didn't quite manage a homebirth, but we would have done if he hadn't been OP. And I was really pleased that I had gone for a homebirth, because I felt quite happy at home, up and down the stairs, out oin the garden, in my pool. And when we did go in for ventouse, the obstrtrician said that had I been in hospital, it wuld definitiely have been a CS.

So I say, go for it. The chances of being more than 14 days overdue are quite small, and unless they tell you that the baby is under stress, you can still wait it out. My mw said they wouldn't be heavy handedly encouraging induction until 3 weeks overdue.

If it works for you, fantastic. If you need to tramnsfer for any reason, well you won't be any the worse off for having started off at home, will you!

Good luck.

It is entirely realistic, apparently 60% of first time home birthers successfully have their babies at home.

It is the best thing to do if you are low risk. Mine was at home, and I still feel amazed at what a good decision it was, but it feels like you are being a bit daring when you are building up to it because lots of people have the opinion that you should see how you labour first time in hospital and then do it at home - but that seems completely, completely illogical to me.
My blueprint for labouring is set now and I have high expectations for the future - I know how good it can be - I have such fab memories.
Aim high - if you need to transfer then that is fine as long as you understand and feel happy with the decision, you will have tried.

You can refuse intervention and ask for daily monitoring to check the fluid around the baby. You certainly don't 'have' to be induced, they can offer but they can't force you. But don't think about that sort of thing yet - think about that when it arises, because you might be early for all you know!

Ignore negative people and block their words out of your mind - they probably haven't a clue what they are talking about, or they are jealous. Lots of people say those sorts of things - from either out-and-out 'I bet you'll be screaming out for an epidural' to the subtler, but just as negative 'oh I think you're SO brave' (oh just f* off!!). Read only positive stories, talk to supportive (and KNOWLEDGABLE people) and think positively.

It'll be great - you're making the right decision. Good luck.

Shiny - and there's no doubt that I felt happier and more relaxed than I would have done in hospital. I used TENS from the outset, and then pool, nothing else until I insisted on an epidural after 3.5 hours of pushing because I didn't like lying on my back. It was fine.

One of the girls in my antenatal group had a homebirth first time. Until around the 70s it was very common for first-time mums to give birth at home (in fact, neither my Mum nor my MIL were offered any choice - they both were due to give birth at home but did both end up in hospital due to complications, Mum with pre-eclampsia and MIL overdue). If you do decide to go for it, just try to be philosophical and don't pin all your hopes on it.

Good luck.

Are you sure of your due date? And is it the same as the one that your mw gave you? If not, go by your date. And you don't have to agree to induction. Definitely stick it out to 14 days over (can't remember exactly but there was a survey where 60% of the women studied who were still pg at 10 days over had gone into labour naturally by 14 days).

Whenever mw or consultants or whoever start using the words "have to" and "must" and "allow" you can smile and say "thank you for giving me the information that I need to make my decision. I'll let you know".

The nice thing about planning a homebirth is you can change your mind at any point and head off for an epidural. If you plan a hospital birth and then find you're coping fine at home - well that's tough, you've got to go in (or have an unassisted birth which might be a tad scary). When people asked me where I was planning on having ds I said "I'm going to decide that when I'm in labour - how can I know before then?" which shut them up nicely.

That whole "go to hospital because you don't know what it will be like" is illogical. If you have your first in hospital, you still won't know what it would have been like at home, because its different.

[I've planned two homebirths now and never actually gone into labour. Oh well. At least I didn't spend my pregnancies dreading hospital.]

There were 8 of us in my ante-natal class, all first time mums. 1 of us (not me) had a home birth that went really well. The rest of us went to hospital-5 ended up with emergency c-sections (two of these were failed inductions), I had a very fast induced birth and the other girl that had a vaginal birth, has had to just have her second baby by c-section as she had so many problems after the birth of baby number 1!

That wasn't meant to scare you-just to say that my friend that held out for a home birth had a wonderful experience , and it was her first baby.

shinyshilling,I know a number of people who have had home births,it semms to be very popular in this area,obviously it all depends on how your labour goes,but i hope you do what you want to do rather than being bossed about by the medical profession.NCT will give you masses of support!

You are not bound to go over your due date. It is quite likely - I can't recall the stats - but not definite. Plenty of us had first babies on the due date or earlier. I did.

First births do tend to be more complicated than second births - but you may be one of those people who's very good at giving birth. And if you register for a home birth you can always transfer at any point - well not when the baby's crowning, obviously, but pretty far on - during the labour.

However, I would say go for it but don't set everything on your birth going any particular way. If you manage it at home, lovely. If not, well, there are a lot of other things to concentrate on!

When I say 'refuse', I just mean in the first instance. I wouldn't object on going into hospital if there were complications or feotal distress. I would just prefer not to be induced as a matter of course or to speed things up unduly. How long can you hold out realisitcally? I think my dates are fairly accurate. I had a scan at 9 weeks and 20 weeks and I can set my clock with the regularity of my period!

Majormoo - that was a really similar experience to my antenatal group. There were 8 of us, and I was the only homebirther. Out of the other 7 only one had a straight forward vaginal birth - the other 6 all had lots of interventions and emergencies despite us all being low risk to start with. I always suspect that this is not a conicidence.

I seem to remember seeing it plotted on a graph somewhere (birthdate relative to due-date) and its a normal distribution about the due-date. I.e just as likely to give birth at 38 weeks as 42 weeks. Or 39 weeks as 41 weeks.

But that might have been for all births, and I don't know if first ones are different. Would love to know though. All those annoying people telling me I'd go overdue...

This is useful: Prolonged pregnancy .

Also Homebirth.org overdue page

Well in my experience it was fine!

I was four days early with my dd (my first) and homebirth was a great experience. Established labour started about 11.30am and I gave birth at 4.20pm with a little help from gas and air!

Now, of course it doesn't always work out that way and I did try to be aware that it might not work out... but it can!

And best of luck!

I had a homebirth with both of my DD's. Its not unrealistic at all. If at any point anything seemed as if it could go wrong then I would have gone straight to hospital. I had a 22hr labour with DD1 and a 6hr with DD2(delivered by dad). I know by staying at home I was alot calmer and found it easier. Good luck, its an amazing experience!

not unrealistic, personally I would avoid induction but be realistic about potential obstacles which I was not and now wish I had

Had fab mw up for homebirth and laboured at home but it took so long and was so painful that I had to transfer. Took 24 hours to get to 10 cm and then because of babe's position was stuck at 10 cme for 12 hours with just pain and nothing happening so had to go in as too exhausted to continue.
Just not prepared for that really so be kind to yourself and realistic, this time round hope for homebirth but am not going to put myself through the exhaustion and pain of last time. If things are going like the last time I shall transfer in, if faster then will stay at home.
goodwebsite on homebirth is homebirth.org and aims website
hope it goes well for you

I had a homebirth for my first (and second), it's not unrealistic at all imo.

Loads of homebirth threads here btw.

It's not unrealistic - why shouldn't you aim for what you want?

I wanted to give birth in water in my local midwife led unit and that's exactly what I did. A colleague of my husband wanted to do the same as me and she did it too. Both of us could have had home births (well as much as you can tell), both of us were 3 days overdue. Both of our families and friends were amazed we would want to do this for a first baby.

The people who are laughing at you are judging it by their experiences.

I think it is right for your midwife to mention induction at this stage - because it gets you thinking. it doesn't mean she won't support you with what you decide.