Homebirth, am I crazy?

[rubberducky87]

Just that really. I'm a first time mum and I really want a homebirth but scared because I've never done it before. Only a few more days until I'm due! My midwife is very supportive but I'm still nervous. Any stories to share??

Women are advised to go to hospital 24 hours after their waters break if contractions haven't started. They're not advised to go immediately.
Also, low risk women are usually not hooked up to a monitor from the moment they arrive in hospital.
With my first daughter I was originally supposed to be going to the midwife led unit upstairs where they just monitored heart rate with a Doppler. If my waters had gone before I had started contracting then I probably wouldn't have opted for a home birth.
I feel like you are seriously missing the point. Your cord prolapse was picked up so quickly and acted in so quickly purely due to luck tbh and being in the right place at the right time. Had your specific cord prolapse happened to anyone else m planning a hospital birth, then most likely it would have ended in tragedy.
I'm so glad you ended up in hospital being monitored at the point you did because it saved your baby's life. However, as someone else said, unless we monitored every woman in hospital for the last month of their pregnancy, it's unlikely that would happen for everyone with cord prolapse.

Not sure where you've got that info re 24 hours from but that isn't the case where I live. With both of my children I was told to go in when my waters broke for checks with the likelihood that I would be sent home. In both cases I was hooked up to the machine at that point. With my first I then went home for a while and with my second I went to theatre.
I still can't understand your contradiction. Yes, she may not have survived in a hospital birth. It was a fully fledged emergency. However the point is she would definitely not have survived a home birth. As I've said lots of times it's about odds. I guess I'm not much of a gambler.

That's the advice here, possibly differs depending on area.
The point I am making is that planning a hospital doesn't guarantee things are all going to be ok. Your argument seems to be that going to hospital will prevent these things from being fatal. What I'm trying to say is that it's a calculated risk.
Anyway, there's no point contonuing as its going around in circles. I understand where your coming from but I don't agree with everything you're saying. I hope motherhood is going well for you and yore enjoying your girls.

We are indeed going in circles.
I agree completely that it's all about risk and that babies die in hospital too. It's the risk and the unknown that makes me want to be where there's equipment to deal with whatever occurs and where I won't have to encounter a traumatic transfer should the worst happen.
Interestingly, as an aside, the home birth advocates always seem to talk about minimising intervention as a positive of home birth. My first child was born entirely naturally- in hospital but with no more than gas and air. She had an Apgar score of 7 rising to 9. My second was both after the most extreme intervention- and under a general anaesthetic and had an Apgar at birth of 10. It's food for thought isn't it.
Oh and yes, thanks a lot. They're gorgeous the both of them. Aren't all our babies?

We are indeed going in circles.
I agree completely that it's all about risk and that babies die in hospital too. It's the risk and the unknown that makes me want to be where there's equipment to deal with whatever occurs and where I won't have to encounter a traumatic transfer should the worst happen.
Interestingly, as an aside, the home birth advocates always seem to talk about minimising intervention as a positive of home birth. My first child was born entirely naturally- in hospital but with no more than gas and air. She had an Apgar score of 7 rising to 9. My second was both after the most extreme intervention- and under a general anaesthetic and had an Apgar at birth of 10. It's food for thought isn't it.
Oh and yes, thanks a lot. They're gorgeous the both of them. Aren't all our babies?

Food for thought ? Your baby had no heart beat for 3 minutes and had an apgar of 10?
It's all a bit bizarre this story

We are not disputing that hospital saved your baby and that she would have died had you been anywhere but on a monitor and moments from an available OR.

But you can't look retrospectively to choose your place of birth. If you are considering home, clu, alongside or stand alone mlu you have to think "if the worst happens (and let's take unexpected cord prolapse with no indication as worst) does it make much difference to my odds where I have plan to have my baby.

The answer is no. It doesn't. Having decided to have your baby in hospital edged the odds ever so slightly in your favour. Because for it to help it had to happen when you were physically there, and when you were on a monitor, and when the OR was free. The first two of those are unlikely enough in your situation that deciding to give birth in hospital doesn't push up the chances of them happening that much. So being in hospital on a monitor when it happened saved her, but choosing hospital as place of birth had little influence on whether that would happen. The only thing that would meaningfully improve the odds in an expected prolapse of that nature is all women being on monitors in hospital from the moment their waters go.

Thankfully in your case that tiny nudge in odds resulted in survival. Of course though, that is not the only highly unlikely but awful scenario. My friends odds were nudged the wrong way by hospital procedures and sadly her baby died. Another lady I knew had her odds of forceps nudged up by being in a clu and her baby suffered nerve damage and she has incontinence.

*unexpected prolapse

Maybe flowers is advocating we all book in for elcs at 37 weeks? Anything else would be selfish in her opinion

My first hospital birth was 'natural' I suppose but it still felt very medical. I think if I had managed to birth in the MLU it would have been nicer as I could have been in a pool and had the nice lights and the ball etc. it was due to poor judgement from the midwives that i ended up strapped to a bed in the consultant unit.
I have no idea what my first baby's agpar score was but dd2 who was born at home last month was 9 rising to 10 at 3 minutes old.

I absolutely think intervention is necessary at times and that some women prefer to be monitored for their own piece of mind etc. I totally support that and can completely understand it. I'm just terrified of hospitals and found going to hospital the worse part of my labohr first time around, especially as they kept trying to send me home.

It's such a personal choice and not one that I think anyone takes lightly.

I would absolutely have another home birth if I was low risk again but hubby says no more babies :-(

No she didn't have no heartbeat for 3 mins. I have never said that. Her heart stopped (twice actually). The midwives and doctors leapt to action and took the pressure off the cord (I won't tell you how but you can guess I'm sure and it was awful). That bought the 3 mins to get to theatre. In fact, I rode on the bed/trolley to theatre with two doctors sat at the bottom end pulling the cord away (on the inside if you get my meaning ). That's what they would have done all the way to hospital had I been at home and it was, I don't mind telling you, awful. It was that, and the speed that the c section happened, that resulted in her being completely perfect. I, on the other hand, was in a right old state!!!

Maybe I should explain that they were pulling the cord away from her head as it was the contractions that were pushing her onto the prolapsed cord and starving her temporarily of oxygen/making her heart stop.
Oh and I'm with your dh Rosie. Never doing that again!!!

Afterwards my dh joked that when they made the cut the docs arms were probably visible from the inside. Oh how I laughed (er not)

I don't know why Flowergirl is getting such a hard time on this thread. The OP asked for stories, she did not specify positive stories, and negative stories are as, if not more, relevant than positive ones.

It is also fair to say that choosing a free birth, or a home birth, or a hospital birth or an ELCS is the woman's choice but she should be held responsible for the reasonableness of that choice. A home birth does place one further away from emergency care that may prove critical in rare cases - how critical and how rare are matters to be judged on individual circumstances and by particular people.

I don't see the point of comparing the choice to home birth vs hospital birth with other risks such as all operating theatres being full because the former is the woman's choice (ceteris paribus) while the latter is not. Not having an operating theatre available in time is a horrible risk but there is nothing the pregnant woman can do to mitigate it so she cannot be held responsible for it.

Why on earth are you bringing free birth into this?

And no, a woman shouldn't be held responsible. That is fucking terrifying. Whether you think a woman's decision is stupid, or fool hardy, or just plain wrong, her body is her own.

And I didn't compare it to an operating theatre not being available. That was just a necessary condition of the intervention that was mentioned.

Thank you Boo. I agree completely. I think that the trouble is that the some people believe so strongly in something that they find it hard to accept and acknowledge the risks in it.

I'll say again, my pregnancy was textbook. My risk low. My baby big- which is an indicator of a lower risk of prolapse. If it happened to me it could happen to anyone.

Penguin- you did actually and when we're talking about birth we're not just talking about a woman's body are we but the body of a baby who might, might, just have to pay a heavy price because of the woman's decision for the rest of his/her life.

Where did I?

And yes, there may be long term implications for the baby.

As a mother, I would always make choices I believe to be safe and responsible for my child. That is my choice as a competent adult.

If another mother wants to free birth to the sound of whale music despite being told she has a transverse baby, would I think her daft? Yes. Would I think her reckless? Yes. Would I think I had any right to 'hold her responsible'? No I wouldn't. Because it is her body. Because just as she has the right to make decisions like refusing a blood transfusion even if it will kill her, she has the rights to make decisions about giving birth. Even if it kills her, her baby or both. Provided she is mentally competent, she has that right. We can make moral judgements. But we are on a very slippery slope if we think we can 'hold her responsible'.

Well who would you hold responsible then Penguin? If you make a decision (either way) surely you have to be willing to be held responsible for it??

You are morally responsible for it. Anyone who wishes to can morally judge you for it.

But no, as a society, we don't get to 'hold people responsible' for the reasonableness of their decisions on medical treatment. We give people the right to make stupid decisions if they wish.

Well not entirely Penguin. Euthanasia is, as I understand it, still illegal is it not?

Euthanasia is getting someone else to help you kill yourself. That's the bit that's illegal. Effectively demanding that someone else provides you with a life ending drug. And, though I've never looked, I thought the offence was committed by the person assisting, not the person who dies. Hence the various court cases.

I'm no expert on it Penguin (thank goodness!) but I am intrigued by your stance.

Legality aside, the moral responsibility to make the safest choice for the benefit of your baby is a heavy weight to bear. Birth is the riskiest time of a child's life- there are countless disabilities which are often caused directly by birth. Putting yourself somewhere where the odds are better (even if only slightly) has to be the moral right choice.
Try justifying a decision to home birth "because you felt more comfortable" to an adult who has dealt with cerebral palsy all of his life as a direct result of a birth complication- then tell him it was your right to do as you wished with your body.

You know what. This is going round in circles.

You continue being as judgemental as you want. I understand why your experience has made you so. It is interesting though that you reserve your judgement for women who choose home birth - would you place the same judgement on my friend who lost her baby. Her loss was contributed to by hospital. Would you judge her for making the 'risky' choice, or is that ok because you feel her choice was inherently safe but badly staffed with poor policies?

I made my choices not based on some airy fairy idea of an experience, but as an educated decision based on where I thought I (Yes, my ongoing health, and continence, and bodily and mental damage get to be put on the scales) and my baby would be safest, and best looked after. A decision also informed by the experience I had the time I went to hospital - where I felt shockingly ignored and not safe.

My agenda isn't 'pro' any venue of birth. But I believe all women have the right to make a decision about where they personally feel they will be safest. I don't believe anyone has the right to tell anyone that they are gambling with their child's life or health when the evidence shows differently.