Please can you tell me why you are going to have / have had a home birth?

[CranberryMartini]

Because I just don't get it!

DS would most probably have died if I'd have had him at home. His heart rate dropped rapidly and needed a ventouse delivery with a resuscitator (sp) on standby. It was scary but I felt surprisingly calm with all the doctors and midwives around.

Why are you prepared to take any risk with your baby's birth? I can vaguely understand a home birth if it's not your first child and you know what to expect, but your first child?

I've also heard (could be wrong) that it costs the NHS £3000 to fund a midwife to do a home birth.

And doesn't it make a huge amount of mess?

Sorry I really don't want to offend anyone with this post and I would like to hear your reasons for choosing a homebirth. Try to persuade me to have my second at home!

you don't want to offend?! but you think that home birthers are putting their babies at risk.
Look at some facts about homebirth - loads of threads on here.
FWIW - my first birth was in a hospital and we were in for 5 days so must have cost the NHS a lot more than my 2 homebirths. My first homebirth was unplanned - my second was very much planned and the best of the 3.

But with my own ds I would have been taking a risk, esp as I had GBS.

for a low risk pregnancy, home birth is just as safe, if not safer than a hospital birth.

women always used to have babies at home, then fashion changed, and hospital became the norm

as did labouring in a time limited way, according to protocols and rules.

don;t know where you got your figures for that, but a ventouse or forceps costs each hospital more than an instrument free delivery, and a lot more again for c.s. so should women not have those either?

and no, mess can be easily contained, with inco pads and towels or in a birth pool , same as in hospital

i think the assumption that homebirthing women are recklessly endangering their babies is not a correct one.

being in hospital can make intervention more likely..

i.e being restricted to the bed, constant monitoring, not being able to eat and drink, epidurals ,not feeling safe, not having privacy.. all these things can have a negative impact on the birth process and don;t happen at home

I didn't quite use those words, but thanks for correcting me on the amount it costs.

Why is it safer, in your opinion?

This is a difficult one. I had a normal delivery in hospital with dd1 so I wanted to have a home birth for dd2. I had a normal pregnancy and was low risk. In the end I decided to go into hospital and had a pool birth. She popped out within a few hours (not like dd1!!) but she was not breathing and had been starved of oxygen. She had to be resuscitated and was rushed to special care where they 'worked' on her for 4 hours before we could see her. We were told that if we had been at home she would have died. I would not take the risk personally but obviously my case was unusual and most home births are ok and they say it is a better experience for everyone.

I should have said that no one was at fault for the oxygen thing - apparently it was just one of those things that happens in a small number of births no mater how quick and easy????

I had DS in hospital but would consider a home birth if we had another baby. I stayed at home for as long as possible with DS and felt much more relaxed, which in itself helped make the labour much easier (so possibly safer?). I was lucky with DS that there were no complications so the midwife basically left me to it while she went off to help someone else. At home you'd have her undivided attention so if there were any problems she could deal with it straight away.

I'd only consider it if there were no complications with the pregnancy - in your case a hospital birth was obviously best as you felt more comfortable there. I wouldn't consider a home birth if a midwife had told me there were any risks.

My only problem is I'm a bit anal with tidiness and would have to cover the whole house in plastic sheets before I started just in case!!

Have a look at the homebirth website for research and discussion about why a homebirth is a good option.

pretty much everything i have read about homebirth, including research by the NCT and Sheila Kitzinger and other well know , well respected experts has told me so !

and from what i know of birth, the process and physiology, a woman who feels safe, supported, confident and is able to move freely, eat and drink as necessary, labour in tune with her body and adopt whatever postion she needs to, can vocalise if she needs to, rest if she needs to ...has a more positive experience...labour can stall or even grind to a halt if a woman is scared, or her privacy is invaded.. these things are a lot less likely to happen to a woman labouring at home.

also, the cost aspect is a red herring.

that is the realm of government and PCTs, women should not have to feel bad for having a home birth because of costs or resources being stretched , that is not the fault of the woman in labour,

IMO, homebirth should be the norm ,for low risk pregnancies. and even for some higher risk ones , it is still a viable and safe option.

I had a homebirth with my ds. I researched the risks and found out that for a low risk 'normal' pregnancy, a home birth is just as safe as a hospital birth. I asked the midwife what happens if the baby needs resuscitating and they assured me that they carry all the same equipment that would be used in a hospital immediately after the birth. I also felt reassured by the fact that we could get get to the hospital in under 10 mins if necessary.
As for the reasons I opted for a homebirth- no nasty hospital bugs, guaranteed attention from a midwife throughout, my own environment, freedom to move as and when and where I wanted to. Also, my DH couldn't bare the thought of having to leave soon after the baby was born to fit in with 'visiting hours'.
It all worked out fine, a quick labour and delivery without pain relief. On the downside I had to go to hospital a couple of hours after ds was born to be 'repaired'- that was annoying but I was still very pleased to have done important bit at home. I plan to only have homebirths in the future but am open minded about the fact that it may not always work out like that. HTH

i was booked in for a home delivery but the hospital refused to send a midwife when I actually went into labour. We also ended up with ventouse after dramatic drop in foetal heart rate. A big part of me still thinks the problems I had were CAUSED by the stress of being forced into hospital and the birthing process being unnecessarily interfered with. My DD had a very poor APGAR score at birth. The sight of them trying to get her to breathe properly will haunt me forever. Now of course I may be wrong and the problems may have happened anyway in which case hospital was the best place for us. But I will always wonder.

Mothers choose homebirths for the same reasons you chose a hospital birth - because they believe it's the safest and best place for their baby to be born.

If you're really interested in the reasons why and the stats on safety everything you need is here.

By the way you do realise you are taking a teeny-tiny risk with your baby's life every time you take him out in a car, don't you?

well my reasons were:

my house is cleaner than Bronglais Hospital

whilst in my own house i was allowed food, drinks and some creature comforts (ie a bath without first scrubbing it)

i had a midwife with me who was focused on me and not 5 different labouring women.

many others besides- if this pregnancy wasn't twins i'd be having a home-birth. If there are no complications and these babies are in a good position then i may well be allowed a twin home-birth but it seems unlikely!

Surely if you are having a straight forward pregnancy, whether that be your 1st or not, then it is just as safe if not safer than a hospital birth. It is proven that being in your own calm surroundings can speed up labour and also you and baby are much less likely to pick up any infections.

Obviously with you having GBS then the safest place probably was hospital where you could be given antibiotics as I'm unsure if they would do that for a HB??

The midwives who attend your HB would not put you or baby in any unnessecary danger and would call for a transfer to hospital if anything was not looking right and they wouldn't just leave this to chance.

As for the mess, you are given a list of things to have ready which includes plastic sheeting/old sheets etc so the birthing area is well covered and can be easily disposed of afterwards and the midwives do this for you.

I'm sure in the long run the NHS saves money as you don't need to take up a bed or resources for a few days as you would in a hospital birth.

I had 2 hospital births then a HB just a few months ago, where the midwives didn't even have time to get here and my dp delivered our daughter! Hence the reason I will be having HB #2 next time around!

It was the best experience so far xx

don't know where your info comes from but it is in fact cheaper for the NHS when a woman has a baby at home.

i had first child at home after doing lots of research and concluding that it was the safest place (see some of the websites quoted on this thread) but a few of my reasons were:

the risk of intervention (which costs money) is much higher in hospital

my house is cleaner than most labour wards

IME there is no mess to clear up. DH emptied pool into drain outside and house was as it was that morning.

why would i want to share fluids with the last lady to use the bed/room in hospital where there is barely time to clean up before the next sucker gets wheeled in?

intervention is more likely in hospital. interventions make the birth riskier. i would say you are risking far more by hauling your cookies and your unborn babe into a dirty, loud, busy, surgery prone enviroment.
but hey, thats just me
i'm full of opinions tonight.

all you have to do is watch that panorama documentary and then come back to this thread and tell us 'why on earth' anyone in their right mind would have their baby in a hospital these days (ok, that is tongue in cheek but i tell you, watch that and tell me hospital births are safer - ha!)

Both mine were hb and I wouldn't have had it any other way, I chose to do this because I think that having a child doesn't really need to be 'medicalised' in most cases. I was more comfortable at home, I wanted my partner to be there with me all the time, not sent away when visiting hours finished, I echo all the other safety reasons described by others (infections, interentions etc) these are really well-explained and important reasons imo.

I had faith in my midwives and would have trusted them to advise me if I needed to transfer. I think you choose whereever you're most comfortable and feel safest, which might hospital or home, both are likely to be fine but neither are a guarantee of a happy birth story.

Yeah, anecdotally many other 2nd dc hbers chose it because of bad hospital experiences, included feeling out of control, being given intervention that was not necessary and lack of opportunity to have quiet closeness with whole family during and especially after giving birth

While I was in hospital having dc 2, there was a mother in there whose baby had died at birth. And this was a large teaching hospital as I had a c-section, so it doesn't necessarily follow that a hospital birth is without risk. Statistically I believe home births are extremely safe ( they wouldn't be allowed if they weren't would they?). My first birth wasnt at home but was a midwife led unit so no neonatal special care, interventions or even a doctor there, but everything was fine and it was my best birth experience of the 3. Having had a cs with number 2, I had to go to hospital for number 3, but I can totally understand why people choose home births - I would have done for 2 and 3 if it had been an option. many people just don't see pregnancy and birth as something which has to be hugely medicalised.

im thinking of a homebirth with dd3 but havent quite decided yet. the hospital is at the end of my road which i think for me is a major deciding factor. the thing that puts me off is that 2 of my friends have recently had babies where something went very wrong, very quickly and if they hadnt been able to have a crash section under ga as quickly as they did they would have lost there babies. but then saying that i know this is very rare and my transfer time would be incredibly short (5 min). i think ill prob book it and see how i feel at the time.

A home birth costs about £500, a hospital birth something like £700 (then you can add about £300 per night for postnatal bed, plus bonus of crap care and free colonisation by MRSA, C. Diff), a section £2000+ (if it all goes right).

Sudden emergencies are not that common in low-risk home-birthing women - there tend to be prior warning markers that a good midwife will pick up on and then suggest a transfer.

If there is an unexpected emergency (shoulder dystocia, flat baby or PPH), midwives are also trained (and they are required to update their skills every year) to deal with these situations.

Having a baby is a normal life process, which we have medicalised and interfered with to the extent that many people, like CranberryMartini, think we need hopitals and doctors to ensure a safe outcome. For some people a hospital delivery is the best, if there are problems with the pregnancy or if the parents anxiety levels would not let them deliver comfortably at home. But for the majority of women, home birth should be offered as a viable alternative, not just for the enlightened few.

There should not be a huge mess in the house after delivery, just as there should not be a big mess in the hospital room after a normal birth. If there is, things have probably not been straightforward. Towels and sheeting is fine to catch the mess.

As for infectious bugs, there are probably more bugs in your house than in the average low risk birthing unit, remember these are just women like you having a baby, not surgical or medical patients with their c. diff and MRSA etc. And although the cleaning in some places might not be great, it really doesnt need to be sterile to be clean. Your shower at home probably has more microbes than the hospital shower unless you clean it every day also - they both probably contain the same bugs - but they are your bugs. If you wouldn't get infected at home, you wone t get infected in the hospital shower. (Grossed out - maybe)

Care in hospitals is not always bad - many people have a really great experience, and even though I consider myself a good m/w, I wont spend the whole shift in a patients room - they need time to labour in peace and to spend time with their dh and not have me standing looking at them all shift. They have my undivided attention when it is needed. But some people get very poor care in hospitals - its just the luck of the draw. There are some midwives who will only do the basics for their patients and have a very high c/s or instrumental rate. And YOU dont know who they are when you come into hospital. At a home birth, there are not many of these types, as they will not do the job or will put you off having a hb. You are much more likely to have an entusiastic and positive m/w, rather than just a jobsworth.

Costs are just numbers - the hospital gets money for each type of care it provides, it gets x amount for a SVD, x amount for doing extra obs on meconium babies, x amount for a hb. It is irrelevant and should not concern you as a patient how much it costs. Hospitals waste a huge amount of money on unnecessary tests and treatments each year, so this is really nothing in the grand scheme.

I would say that if you are thinking of homebirth - then go for it. If its not for you then that too is ok. You have to feel comfortable with what you choose.

Sorry if this rambles on a bit.....

I have just had a home VBAC - not the lowest risk category and I wasn't committed to staying at home until the day. But I did know that going into hosital early would increase my chances of another c-section so I wanted to stay at home as long as possible. In the event I delivered the baby within 3 hours of going into established labour and going to hospital was never really an option. It was awonderful experience that I will forever be grateful for.

I agonised over the issue and I did lots of research beforehand on the risks of home v hospital births and I did have that fear of "what if I am that tiny, tiny % to whom they say - if you had been in the hospital your baby wouldn't have died". But it's a question of balancing risks - there are risks to hospital births too. And for me I made it very clear that I wanted to go into hospital at the slightest sign of anything being out of the ordinary.

I also hired a private midwife so it cost the nhs nothing.