Everyone is pressurising me to have a homebirth and it is pissing me off

[CharlieAndLolasMummy]

NOW before I start, I have NO problem with HBs. Have one if you want it. They are statistically safe and everything, and for some people are going to be great.

BUT I am so bloody fed up of people who have had one, in often very different circumstances to me, telling me that I "really ought to go for a HB".

Here is why I do not want a home birth

1. I have 2 kids aged 2 and 4. I do not want my younger child at the birth, it will freak her out and I will be the only one who can comfort her (and I know this because she is MY child, I don't care how many other kids see their mother bellowing swear words, she will NOT cope)

I don't mind the 4 year old being there at all, but the mws want someone assigned to look after him and that means an additional person in the room, which I don't want.

1. I am extremely noisy when giving birth. Anyone who says that my kids and (less importantly) the neighbours will not hear me bellowing away is talking out of their ar$e, sorry. They have NOT heard me in labour.

1. I really do quite like going to the midwifery led unit. I have done it before. They are very, very kind, they give you food, they run you a bath, they have NO stairs to schlep up and down, and after the birth I can make up excuses to get myself a bit of breathing space. They also limit the number of non-family visitors at one time, and anyway, I can always go for a 6 hour discharge.

1. Oh and I tend to lose a lot of blood quite quickly in labour because I have fairly quick labours (about 1 hour each from 5 cm to delivery.) I don't want to faff with cleaning this up, I know some mws do but I have also heard that some don't. I don't want to worry about it.

1. And I want to use their huge warm pool without having to worry about my dining room ceiling.

But no one gives a crap about any of this. I am getting "oh this is baby #3, are you having a hb this time" and when I say "no, probably not" I get this glazed look and a recitation of why I should have a hb, which bears NO relevance to my situation. I KNOW it is pretty safe, I KNOW that for some people it is a wonderful bonding experience with their dcs-it just isn't for me.

Oh and I know its the lentil weavery equivalent of having old women come up to you a week before you give birth and say "gosh, I expect you really would like to hear horror stories about how dangerous childbirth can be" but it is SO annoying, noone is listening to me, they are just reciting this mantra and it is SO SO annoying.

Sorry, needed to say that. It feels like it is all I have heard this last few weeks.

well knock me down with a copy of Spiritual midwifery

i even started a thread a while ago asking after you !!!

good lord woman !!!!

no-one tells me anything anymore >

thank you for starting a thread though, I didn't see it but it makes me feel loved

ps have just re-read spiritual midwifery and it is making me lol, there is a bit about the man feeling the woman's pain which I am sure would be easy enough to accomodate...

oh yes !!!

so, anyhoo, hi ! and wow! 37 weeks... that has gone quickly, well, for me anyway !

nice to 'see' you, or at least realise it was you

"and wow! 37 weeks... that has gone quickly, well, for me anyway ! "

lobs many sharp pointy things lulu's way

Ar$e though, was not trying to disguise myself here...

exactly charlolamum

i think it would be more useful to many modern mums (i wish me at the time) to spend less time thinking about birth and more time thinking about new baby/how baby is going to affect their relationships/work/childcare etc etc

of course mums need information about birth but it has almost gone too far - there is now almost a hierachy of birth experiences that can ADD to the stress!

yes I did actually feel that I had failed the first two times.

I have a healthy 2 year old and 4 year old, htf can that be a faliure fgs?

I am INCREDIBLY pro birth choices, and women knowing about them, and the situation before was pretty awful. We do owe the NCT, among other organisations, quite a lot.

One thing I have had quite a few arguments about in my local branch though is the need for parent education for AFTER the birth.

Ha Filly (hello )

I like the bit about amn feeling pain... wehn i was birthing ds2 I had this strong impulse that DH needed to do so and also needed something to tell his mates about

So I bit him hard

opps

pmsl

when I was helping with an NCT class recently, the teacher said that fathers should only allow their partners to hold two of their fingers when their partners were giving birth, as labouring women have been known to break their birth partner's hands

She said, "DO make sure the fathers know this"

One woman said "Why?"

(don't ask me why you'd want 2 fingers broken but not a whole hand, it didn't make much sense generally)

ok. so it wasn't the brightest comment.. but it did make you reveal yourself.... actually, if you could see some of the names people I know have called their children it isn't ALL that daft to ask the question.

I can totally see your point WRT birth chocies, be it CS/VBAC/HB etc, they are choices which we chould be allowed to make ourselves without any emphasis from HCP's (with the exception of added risks for certain pregnancies).

I'm planning a VBAC and after a bit of a wobble a few weeks ago have taken to just smiling knowingly at my HCP's when they say 'and.....erm at 38 weeks we can....discuss delivery options'. It is scrawled all over my notes that I am determined to have a VBAC thoguh so I dont think they dare mention it.

Get scary woman

Speccie, I'm so sorry to hear about your friend, but it is a sad part of life that in some circumstances babies don't get the help they would need, I have a friend whose baby died in a normal straightforward hospital birth that at a homebirth probably would've survived.

I didn't take NCT classes, and it was my NHS classes that were unrealistic and in some cases very biased. One of the MW was clearly trying to push everyone into the birthing centre option by slagging off the regular consultant led wards, and the only reason that we discussed a lot of the things that can go wrong was because I was asking lots of questions. To be honest, I think that in a class of first-time Mums, you have to assume that a lot of them won't go to plan. Of the births I know about in the class none of them did and all of us ended up being transferred, even though we'd done all the breathing, avoiding epidurals etc. etc. that was recommended.

Whoops - sorry Pruners! I was feeling really 'ranty' yesterday and lost the plot a bit.

I think I've been reading too many 'Alphamummy' articles from timesonline

They've really got it in for the NCT.....
I feel sad when I hear it being slgged off because though I don't think it's beyond criticism I do think sometimes it's used as a scapegoat for women who have had horrible, disappointing birth and breastfeeding experiences who are looking for someone/something to blame. It gets criticised for what people think* it stands for, not for what it actually does.

Anyway, sorry

Message withdrawn

Sociologically we're just in a weird place right now as regards birth. We know how women should be treated during labour (with respect, given freedom to behave instinctively during birth, given privacy etc) and how to create a sympathetic birth environment, we just don't have the resources or the political will to make it happen. It's hard for women to hear all this when they're going to end up being abandoned to a system in which (postcode lottery not withstanding) almost every aspect of their care during labour will militate against them having a straightforward birth.

Personally if my best friend was pregnant for the first time the only bit of advice I'd give her would be 'think about raiding your piggy bank to pay for an independent midwife'!

If you want to go to hospital then you should go.

It is a shame though.

I have found it has been MUCH better for my existing children when I gave birth a home.

I think you are doing your children a favour by being at home and it certainly helps them bond with the new baby.

Message withdrawn

Agree that you should do whatever feels best for YOU!
I am an anaesthetist, therefore my comfort zone is in a hospital surrounded by lots of docs and midwives, drugs if I need, piped oxygen blah blah blah, but that's just me! Have had 2 perfectly straightforward deliveries in hospital with no intervention, but think that's because I was happy and relaxed being there...next one being born in hospital too.

Have had a horrid induced hospital birth and then a home birth. The latter was a far better experience, but it's all about what you are comfortable with. Mine was a choice between the second biggest hospital in Scotland (6000 births a year)or my front room. There was no happy medium available.

The choice was really made for me.

Due again in June. As long as the midwives are happy, it's going to be another HB.

A birthing centre sounds lovely though...

Skipping lightly over the intervening discussion- much of it seems to have been prompted by other concerns than that of the OP- I think it is very annoying when other people assume that their concerns are your concerns or that what would hurt or upset them is the same as will hurt or upset you. Have to admit I did have an NCT friend (though not all NCT'ers are like this) who went round wanting to commiserate with anyone who had a caesarian- even though I didn't have the slightest problem with having my emergency caesarian; I was only interested in the fact that ds had been saved. She more or less told me that if I didn't have a problem, then I should have. Yawn! Still, my SIL's experience was even more interesting - she was rung up a week after a birth by a midwife who wanted to offer her counselling after her caesarian 'because you must be feeling such a failure. She hadn't realised she was expected to feel a failure after bearing a healthy and gorgeous son.

I recall from another (heated) hb/hospital thread that only something like 2% of births in this country are hbs, so you must mix with quite a select circle of friends to come up against this type of pressure.
I don't agree that women necessarily want the freedom to birth "instinctively", meaning non medically. My comfort zone is surrounded by doctors and medical equipment.

"there are plenty of people who don't want to labour instinctively - it is a concept that does rather get pooh-pooed"

Yes - there are plenty of people who seem to have forgotten that we're mammals!

You can follow your instincts where ever you birth - it's just harder if have no freedom freedom of movement in labour and you've had pain relief that disrupts the normal physiological responses of labour.

But women will manage to have normal births in highly medicalised environments all the time. Ironically those are probably the women who could have efficiently birthed their babies up a tree like that woman during the floods in South Africa a few years ago (remember that amazing story?).

I think that all this could be sorted out with a few simple words. Like when I was asked "how are you giving birth", "how did your child birth go" and " are you breast feeding", by people I barely knew I always replied with the same thing.

MIND YOUR OWN BLOODY BUSINESS - do you really think I want to discuss my personal experiences with you?

Just 'cos people will go on the telly nowdays to discuss everything from their piles to being abucted by aliens, doesn't mean that every one wants to "share".

What happened to respecting someones privacy?

Having had a home birth myself, I would never try and convince anyone else to have one. To have a home birth you have to be one hundred percent committed to the idea, if you are pressured into it, it will just make the whole experience stressfull.

Good posts Sabire.