Home or the hospital

[jessnoble]

I was just wondering, what are peoples opinion on giving birth at home or in a hospital e.g. advantages/ disadvantages

It would be a great help :)

But you would have been able to transfer in if that was the case I don't see the problem and moving in with a young baby is preferable to me than going to hospital while in labor.

The drive the bumps I had all back to back babies and sitting or lying was unbearable being in the car was horrendous on my two hospital births I would much rather calmly make my way there post birth.

I think it depends on what you want...I had to have Hospital birth because I was induced due to a blood condition...I would of given birth in hospital anyway..for me I felt reassured the emergency equipment and staff were around...

I had a newly qualified MW deliver my son...she was very supportive ..I was far more relaxed at hospital...

'It's a huge lottery as to the care with any birth! Unless maybe you're flagged early on as high risk?'

There are things you can do to increase your chances of better care though. Having a slightly unconventional birth plan makes it more likely you'll get a more experience midwife for example.

Having a homebirth means you get more 1:1 observation and potential risks are flagged earlier.

"But you would have been able to transfer in if that was the case"

But I wouldn't have realised at home as I knew absolutely nothing about babies. I just thought DD wanted to sleep. If I had been at home I would have waited 24 hours for the midwife to visit the next day.

I had a phone nnumber for the ward and the me stayed a couple of hours to check how feeding was going so the mw would not have left if the baby wasn't feeding and if you had concerns you could of called and they come back out.

It depends on where the mother to be feels safest - for me it was home every time. I wasn't sick, I had no risks, I didn't need to be in hospital and was only a few minutes away so the MW assured me I would receive treatment as quickly as women on the labour ward if I needed it.

I also wanted to be completely alone - to labour, give birth and establish bf. I knew where help and support was if/when I needed it and I didn't want to presume that I would need medical intervention.

"I had a phone nnumber for the ward and the me stayed a couple of hours to check how feeding was going so the mw would not have left if the baby wasn't feeding and if you had concerns you could of called and they come back out."

In that case the mw would have stayed for 4 days.

No when feeding was not established you would have been admitted.

Ah right.

There are things you can do to increase your chances of better care though. Having a slightly unconventional birth plan makes it more likely you'll get a more experience midwife for example.

I think that this is something you often don't realise with your first one, especially if you don't know anyone who has had a baby recently. I believed what I was told, which was about an idealised system, which wasn't how it worked in real life.

Second time round, I learnt that there were other options, which would have been far better for me, including homebirth which I went for the second time and MLUs, which I would have probably chosen for the first. I wasn't really all that interested in hearing about how wonderful the CLU was for women who had health conditions which didn't affect me.