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!

So many of these threads have selfish reasons for wanting a home birth, wanting to be in comfortable familial surroundings, not having to walk across the corriador for a pee etc. I think that reading the experience of poor needmorecoffee should be enough for people to get over their own hang ups and think about the potential dangers that home birth can pose to their babies and themselves. There are excellent reasons why we have obstetricians. They are the ones who pick up the pieces and save lives when the touchy feely private midwife can't get you to push your baby our with her hippy breathing techniques and holistic remedies.

sthmum.. tragically, catastrophes happen in hospital too, with an obstetrician in attendance or even delivering. i think each woman has to take the right decision for her and her family. a proportion of birth will have terrible outcomes regardless of where they take place.

Camillathechicken....where is your evidence that hospital births have the same mortality rates as home births? If you choose to have your baby at home and the sh*t hits the fan, how can you forgive yourself? Even if you are "low risk", I certainly feel that your first birth should be in hospital. Fair enough if you've pooped out 5 sprogs and leapt back to the rice fields straight after. Home births are a massive backward step and we will end up like the 3rd world re.mother/baby mortality/morbidity.

sthmum - Im sorry but I take offence to the way you're explaining yourself.

Things happen in hospitals as much as they happen in home births if not more I would have thought.

I want to have a homebirth because of the reasons you've stated. Hospitals scare the crap out of me and the rules that I've heard from our hospital means that alot of the things I wanted to do to make my stay better can't be done.

I personally think that if I have a homebirth (MW permitting) then i'll have a better chance of not needing medical intervention or c-sections etc for not being able to cope.

I would point out that feeling comfortable in a birth setting is not a selfish desire. But is also more likely IMO to enable one's body to get on with what it is programmed to do: to give birth safely.
Plus, if you have a high risk pregnancy, the chances of being able to have a home birth, or of wanting one are pretty slim.
How rude of you say that choosing a homebirth is selfish. Or that people choose them for selfish reasons.

Thankyou Pooka - That was what I was trying to say but emotions clouded me! lol

Actually, your terminology and language is really offensive.

Good luck for the birth Luckysalem.

Loopymummy, you are well named. Look at the website you just directed me to? I'm sure that their evidence is going to be well balanced and unbiased. Like i said, if you are an uncomplicated multip, fair enough, eat your heart out. Recent studies have mainly chosen their groups of low risk women very carefully. However, if all pimips are being offered home births, we will soon be aware of the sorry outcomes.

sthmum - You're just being mean now. Stop it, this is a informative thread not a bitchfest.

your argument is that babies only die or tragedy only happens at home births? that is absolutely not correct

and referring to 'pooping' babies out is just juvenile, you are making a mockery of the thread

interesting your first posts on mumsnet ( under this name ) are offensive and looking for a row

homebirths are not a massive backwards step, homebirth used to be the default position, only when one of the royals gave birth in hospital did a shift begin to hospital birth

And to suggest that making homebirths more readily accessible as recommended by the Cochrane report will lead to maternal and infant deaths equivalent to those in a developing country is ... well it is just illogical.

sthmum-the reason I chose a home birth is that the over medicalisation of child birth leads to a lot of complications and intervention that is unnecessary and causes problems on its own. Hospitals are not pleasant or desirable places to be, the stress of this can cause problems that wouldn't exist otherwise, you may have very little faith in your body to do what it was designed to do but I have full confidence. Few people would go for a home birth if there was a pre-existing condition.

You are also forgetting that the women in 3rd world often don't have any ante natal care to pick up any potential problems and that is compounded by then not having good facilities for giving birth as an option for sorting out the missed problems. Realistically we have very good medical care throughout pregnancy so its not a directly comparable situation.

Sthmum, the Birthday trust report may indeed be accessed thorugh the homebirth website. It was not commissioned by them, however. It is not their evidence - it is independent evidence that collates information for all births in a certain time period. It found that homebirth was as safe as hospital birth for low-risk women.

If you are going to be offensive, at least be accurately offensive.

If this statement wasn't so ridiculous, ill-informed and offensive it would be hilarious. You clearly have absolutely no concept of the very specific dangers faced by women giving birth in some parts of the developing world. To suggest that promoting homebirths to women in the UK would put them at comparable risk is...well, tbh words fail me.

When you find a bunch of women in the UK who have to walk for 7 days to their nearest health centre, or who have no access to antenatal care, clean water, antibiotics, safe surgery or drugs, call me, and we'll talk. Until then, save it.

In terms of wanting a homebirth being selfish - bloody hell, after carrying a baby for 9 months, too bloody right I'll be selfish, and labour in the environment I feel most comfy and safe. If I am stressed in hospital, my labour will be stressed, resulting in a higher chance of intervention being needed.

Women have been giving birth outside of hospitals like forever. If it were sooooooo dangerous to mother/ baby, the population would have died out centuries ago - not only would all the babies have died, but the mothers would have too.

Labour is a natural event - sadly for some it doens't go smoothly, but it is as likely to go wrong in hosp as at home - even thought the outcome may be different.

I have worked with a number of families whose children have been born severely brain damged as a result of overworked midwives not picking up on fetal distress early enough because they had so many patients to deal with. At home, this could be picked up earlier hopefully, and transfers initiated. Midwives aren't daft, or namby pamby (or whatever other offensive expression was used) they won't leave you to labour at home if you are struggling, or if you are high risk to start with.

Homebirth mothers are not all hippy, drug free, tree huggers. We are normal women who want to give birth normally, in a low stress, low intervention environment. Other women may feel less stressed in hospital - so if we want to be at home, why should we take up valuable space and time needed by those who need or want to labour in hospital?

ooooooohhhh [angy]

i mean oooooh

Sthmum, please don't use my example in your ill-thought out argument.
Homebirth is safe for low-risk women and things can go wrong anywhere because quite often when they do it is sudden. My feelings are that had I been closer to the hospital or possibly in it that dd would be less brain damaged. Not un-brain damaged.
In my CP group there are 15 women. I was the only homebirth. 3 had c-sections (planned), 2 emergency sections cos of fetal dsitress, 5 had normal births in hospital. All have brain damaged children. The other 4, their children became brain damaged after birth from meningitis from 2 weeks to 1 year (and they are the worse affected with severe mental impairment too).
Birth can go wrong anywhere.
I did say that I wouldn't have another homebirth but thats cos of what happens to me. But women should make well-informed choices as there are pro's and con's to both places. One with hospital birth is that you might be able to sue if something goes amiss. Its almost impossible at a homebirth. But then no-one goes into childbirth planning how to sue.

I gave my story not to persuade women either way but because every woman should know that things do go wrong. The baby magazines never ever explain this or show disabled babies and it ticks me off.
Its part of 'stop disability being hidden' outlook.

sthmum is just being personal and inflammatory! we have all talked about our own experiences in a balanced and honest way - especially needmorecoffee - so what is your experience of a hb sthmum?

Hello all! Just joined this link now. It's a really interesting one. I've just had my first baby (she is gorgeous!!) in a hospital. I was incredibly nervous of hospitals and all things related to them before getting pregnant. (In fact I had hypnosis to help when I found out I was pregnant, and it really, really helped - would recommend to anyone in a similar position.It stopped me fainting my way through various blood tests etc!!) Anyway, you would have thought I would have run a mile from a hospital birth.And quite a few people told me to go for a home birth. But actually I was so worried about something going wrong, I wanted the reassurance of being in a hospital in case something did. What Sthmum has written may sound a little abrasive, but I definitely have sympathy with what she says - I chose to go to the hospital because I wanted to put the health of my baby first, however much I might feel uncomfortable. I knew I would never have forgiven myself if there had been complications that could not have been so readily and quickly dealt with as in a hospital. In the end it was actually a great experience, full of emotion and not clinical or distressing. In the end it comes down to the people around you I think. I had fantastic midwives and fantastic doctors. (And my hubby was a great birth partner!!). It comes down to personal choice I guess, but for me a hospital birth was surprisingly great.

I had my first homebirth (2nd child) because it was clear with my first birth that I didn't need to be in hospital (it was good hospital experience, but too straightforward for words). My next two homebirths were because of the fantastic experience I had initially.

Research says that for a normal birth, you are safer at home. Problems almost always arise before the onset of labour (so you have the choice to go to hospital), or as a result of intervention (which you don't really get at home). The kind of surprise complications are not usually better dealt with if you are already in hospital.

Obviously any choice to stay at home has to be taken in light of the midwifery service (is it seamlessly integrated with the local hospital?), distance to hospital, and your preganncy/obstetric history.

I think the whole first baby vs subsequent babies is an intersting debate. My understanding is that second ones are usually easier than the first, but that third babies can be tricky labours?

One benefit of hospital births (or I guess a downside of a home birth) for a first baby is the pain relief options offered. I had hoped that I might get through without medication (I've run marathons and I naively thought my pain threshhold must be pretty high) and I did get a long way. Hot baths,breathing, walking about and tens machine were great. But as a first time mum it's really had to imagine what the pain's like till you're in it and in the end the pain got to me and I had a mobile epidural which I think made a difference, as my daughter ended up being a big baby that took two and a half hours pushing at the end to get out! (They turned down the epidural drug for that bit to help with the pushing which was great as I was scared of feeling numb and removed from the whole experience...although it was bloody painful!). I honestly think the (lack of) pain relief options for a home birth would have unfortunately been very distressing in retrospect. The lovely midwife who looked after me told me that she sees lots of first time mums like me who often start off in the birth centre (across the corridor from the labour ward) and are very comfortable there in the initial stages of labour. But towards the end they often feel they need stronger pain relief than a birth centre is able to offer. Those with second/third/fourth babies have a better understanding of their labour pain threshold. I think it's important that people don't feel that they've 'failed'(my probably naive view before my labour began) if they don't end up with a home birth or one without pain relief.

Right, I'm excited about my HB if all goes to plan and yes, the following APPEAL to me:

1. Familiar Surroundings
2. Eat or Drink when I want
3. Own toilet, bathroom facilities
4. Own birth pool
5. In own bed after
6. Family not restricted from seeing me and baby i.e. set visiting hours
7. less distruption for ds
8. No noise of other patients/babies keeping me/my baby awake
9. Cup of tea in own mug etc etc etc etc...

However, my REASONS for wanting a home birth are because I HATED my hospital experience with ds. I was put in room and forgotten about even though screaming in pain - dh ended up shouting and swearing for them to come and help me after a few hours. I swear the pain was worse because I was terrified because I was just DUMPED there. When they came in they moodily pointed at the gas and air on the wall and said 'well, it's up there' - like I have a fcuking crystal ball!!! At least at home I should get proper 1:1 care and I'm near enough to the hospital to feel that this is ok should I need to be transferred. I swear I was in labour for so long due the stress and being terrified!! Plus at least I know how clean my house is, unlike the hospital!! Oh....and the midwifes at the end made me feel MAJORILY STRESSED by the way they were telling me I need to have this baby out as been X amount of time!! - moody and with the clipboard someone else mentioned earlier!