Children allowed on delivery suite (during labour, not after birth)

[SpamAnderson]

I had my heart set on using MLU or preferably a homebirth (so my DH, DM and dds could be present). My BMI is elevated and now they think baby is large so won't let me have a hb or use MLU. My eldest dd (will be 8 when baby arrives) is very mature for her age and has always been very interested in childbirth and is very excited to meet and help care for her brother would love to be at the birth. The youngest (will be 6) says she'd like to be there but she is far younger mentally and I think she would be traumatised. She'd be easily pacified with spending the day with her Nannie instead of a boring hospital though. The eldest, not so much!
Anyway, long story short, has anyone had their child (under 16) present at a hospital birth? I have promised DD1 that I will ask the mw and consultant when I next meet them but I have a feeling that they would say no due to her age?

I didn't say do whatever you feel like urethra, I said get maximum information and decide on that. The protocol is part of that information, but not all. In the other direction if I'd blindly followed the protocol and been early, I could have been birthing a 36 weeker at home. Not a risk I'd want to take. Given the additional information (when I had a shag) that the protocol said the MW wasn't allowed to take into account, I made my own call as to when I was happy to homebirth, and would have been prepared to override the protocol if necessary.

Boosiehs, if you were in theatre, you would already have transferred in from a homebirth. And distance to transfer in is another factor to consider - when I was within "allowed" dates the MW pointed out to me that I'd be in theatre just as quickly from home as from the hospital if it came to needing it.

I think OP is happy with hospital birth anyway so this is all probably by the by.

If you move to theatre during labour due to complications then if your child had been with you they wouldn't go into theatre. If for any reason ds1 had needed to leave he would have gone to the waiting room on labour and delivery that our hospital has, called a taxi and gone home, or gone down to the coffee shop or restaurant. Depending on the time of the day he would have got a taxi home or been collected. As I said it requires planning.

The ops risk initially was bmi, she then lost weight and was told mlu was Ok, for them now to say the baby is big. Have they done scans seen how much baby is growing? How big were your other babies and how did your other births go?

Protocol is not made to fit the individual and it is worth speaking to the midwife or the supervisor of midwives at your hospital about your risks and plans for the birth. Good luck op.

There are always risks for birth, being at hospital and blindly following Dr's advice does not make it risk free, if I had done that with ds1 I would have had problems. Ditto Ds3 and Ds4 with Dr's wanting me on my back, on moniter, I refused had intermittent monitoring and a mobile active labour including water birth for Ds4. The midwife that delivered Ds4 said it was a good job I did as at 10lb 13oz with a head off the top of the percentile chart he wouldn't have come out so easily had I been flay on my back on a bed. As it was labour was under an hour, forty mins in the pool and no pushing required.

I didn't say do whatever you feel like urethra, I said get maximum information and decide on that. The protocol is part of that information, but not all

By all means get the maximum information - but make sure that you can critically appraise that information (and evidence) effectively. Protocol for the lower risk births will still be based on good practice, so that will look at the research base and say "on the basis of X we recommend Y". Evidence for higher risk births (SIGN, NICE, Cochrane and so on) will be based on rigorous high level evidence and you'd be a fool to ignore that. You need to be very careful that you understand the difference between the 2.

I know it's not your story to tell cat but it sounds strange. I would love to see the evidence behind it (this is my field - 25 years of working in the NHS).

Even if your birth went smoothly you're exposing her to an environment where there's every likelihood other people are clearly not having such an easy time.

I'm sorry but i can't believe this is even being contemplated. She's 8? I find this bordering on child abuse quite frankly. What next - would you have her there when you and your husband have sex next time so she's there at moment of conception?!

Leave her with someone she loves who can keep her updated and bring her to you as soon as the baby is safely here. However mature she is, you can't possibly know the implications of seeing that and how it will affect the rest of her life at 8 years old. If anything went wrong it would be so utterly traumatic for her. If she's disappointed in not being there, then this is solely you to blame for having put the idea in her head in the first place. I'm genuinely speechless that someone could even think of having such a young child there.

Wow I think some of the comments on here are very judgemental. Bordering on child abuse? Really? Slight over reaction.

I considered having my two year old present as I was having a home birth and she was very interested in the whole thing, we watched obem etc to prepare her just in case it went very quickly and my mum wasn't able to collect her in time. Ultimately I left the decision up to her and she decided she wanted to go to her grans in case 'mummy was shouty' and that was fine. It was the right decision for us as I ended up having a very vocal labour with dd2. However the 'child abuse' comment and comparing it to having sex are quite frankly ridiculous comments and blowing the whole thing out of proportion.

You left a 2 year old to decide if she wanted to see you give birth, and prepared for that by showing her OBEM??

Wowser.

Yeah I truly am a terrible mum!

I don't think you're a terrible mum, just one who, as an adult, should be making that decision for your 2 year old (who is little more than a baby themselves).

Maybe not a terrible mum but a very misguided one

I know you don't think children should be there at all SirChenjin, but if a parent did decide they were happy for a 2 yr old to be around, surely they also have to give the 2 yr old the chance to say they don't want to be. Allowing them to be around is one thing, forcing them to be there quite another.

Because a 2 year old has absolutely no understanding of the birth process, and so leaving it up to a toddlerto have the final say is as Ehric says is misguided - Ultimately I left the decision up to her. Good grief cat - it's not that hard to understand.

As parents and adults, we don't leave decisions like that to babies.

So I can't let my toddler ride a horse, because she's not qualified to assess the level of risk, so I can't leave the decision up to her - but I can't make her do it?

Rosey decided based on her knowledge of the risks involved that she was prepared to let her toddler be around. Toddler decided based on basic knowledge that mummy might be shouty that she'd rather not. Sorted.

If toddler had decided she did want to Rosey would probably have discovered she wanted to be shouty and suggested granny take toddler off to the park or something anyway. Still sorted.

(Hope I'm not misrepresenting you there Rosey!)

OP- I am going to be blunt. You have to think about the worst case scenario. The one where it all goes wrong and your precious baby is stillborn or dies shortly after the birth. Would you want to expose your DD to that, even if she had been ushered out to the waiting room because something was "wrong". Your DH would be out there with her and you would be left alone to deal with the most traumatic event of your life by yourself. Your DD would suffer the trama first hand. Sadly, unexpected stillbirths aren't that rare. The other worst case scenario is that you could die. Very rare, but it is a possibility.

You have to consider the worst possible outcome over and above the lovely 8 year old being their to welcome her sister into the world .

I really don't think birth is the place for primary school aged children, even mature interested ones because of the affect it would have on them if it all went wrong.

What Something said. Things can and do go wrong very quickly, so having access to all the information in the world isn't going to help you or the child if there is a major emergency.

Riding a horse (a small one, on the leading rein, with you holding onto them, wearing safety gear) is hardly the same thing as allowing a 2 year old to make the ultimate decision as to whether they want to see you give birth. Can you think of a more appropriate analogy?

Oh - and OBEM is on after the watershed for many reasons.

I think it's an appropriate analogy. A small risk of something going disastrously wrong. We decide what risk we deem acceptable, then we let toddler decide if that's actually something they want to do. You disagree with the risk assessment, fair enough, we wouldn't have had toddler around either if we'd had a home birth; but don't object to the toddler having last refusal.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the anaology - the risks are nowhere near the same, nor are the circumstances. We also have to be clear as parents that the child (toddler) is well aware of the possible outcomes - at 2 there is no way that they can be, so it's up to us to guide based in what we know is the reality. Saying "no" can be much more helpful.

Baffled - it's not a blanket 75%. It depends on a range of factors

In what way Baffled?

It's impossible to put a blanket figure on it - it depends on the individual protocol or pathway as to whether it's based on rigorous evidence or 'simply' best practice (although best practice is still better than a lay person making a unilateral decision). One figure that is bandied about is that anything between 50-80% of healthcare practice is evidence based - but that can vary tremendously across intervention and speciality.