free birthing (please don't post if you don't like the idea)

[workstostaysane]

anyone done it, interested in it, read the books?
i'm only just pregnant for the 2nd time - had a totally drug free wonderful home birth first time around and now keep thinking i'd love to do it without a midwife this time. just interested to know if there is anyone else really.

WTSS, just relating to your point about risk in developed countries, there's an interesting BBC article here, did you see it? It's about birth in Sweden.

Sweden is the safest place in the world to be born. The child mortality is half that of the UK. Almost 100% of Swedish babies are born in hospital.

Now, the author of that article assumes that the low mortality is a direct result of having lots of medical care available. I disagree with that - there are so many other factors that would contribute.

But on the other hand, delivering in hospital clearly isn't harming them either.

The description in the article was of a woman delivering in hospital with husband present and with the help of a midwife. The medical facilities were available close by, but played no part in the birth in question.

I know this is not what you want - am not suggesting this for you at all. I just think the article is food for thought, because it shows very clearly that a hospital birth as such isn't harmful - as I think a lot of freebirthers believe - it's more a question of appropriate vs inappropriate intervention. IMO anyway. I tlooks as if Sweden has somehow got this right, whereas the NHS hasn't.

(PS I dont' know about breathing, but am a big fan of Sheila Kitzinger wrt active birth - worked brilliantly for me)

re the placenta

it can take a while to come away, sometimes a change of postion, something as simple as standing can help. putting baby to the breast encourages hormone release to detach the placenta

once the placenta is out , the MW would carefully examine the placenta to ensure that it is intact and whole and so are the membranes, anything that remains behind can cause heavy bleeding and infection

if your DH is not happy with the idea of freebirthing, do you propose to go ahead despite his reluctance?

lol - I totally DID NOT have the birth I would have expected with ds1. Given the choice I would have opted for a section (not knowing that it was major surgery, but knowing that I DID NOT want to give birth). In the even it was a straight forward quick and easy birth (in so far as any birth is easy).
With ds2 I probably did I have the birth I visualised, but that was having already given birth once, and realising I was perfectly capable of it.

I'm going to sound really dense here but what is a doula?
(runs off to bury head in shame at not knowing something that everyone else in the world does....)

the idea of free birthing is amazing i had never ehard of it till i just read this thread i really wanted drug free births and i ended up with two emergency c sections im in awe of anyone who does a home birtha nd to do it just you and your dh is fab xx good luck x

i'm sure someone has the correct defintition ladymariner, but AFAIK, a doula is someone who has attended lots of birth and is there solely to give support to the mother. she is not a medical practitioner, more like a sister or auntie who has 'seen it all before'. doula.org or doula uk will give you better info.

i dunno chasingsquirels, you seem pretty happy go lucky to me. no complaining about how it all took you by surprise , it was too fast (which i've heard people complain), what the hell was DH doing with the bubble wrap...
anyway, its just IME and i really can't think of anyone who has not had the birth you could have predicted

(please don't let this become a thread about how your birth experience was not/was exactly what you expected)

thanks 2specialgirls. nice to hear from you.

lol, sorry didn't mean to do that.
btw it was ds2 that was the unassisted, not ds1 - now that WOULD have freaked me out!

bubblewrap - well it is the shower curtain thing, something waterproof, but several people recommended bubblewrap as it is cheap, easy to use and a bit padded. Anyway, dh was despatched to cut some off the roll (my dad had got a roll when they were moving) to put on the bed, I got off the bed so he could just put it on to cut the right size, though I better just check the baby wasn't coming yet, put my hand down to check - and blow me there he was .

How are you feeling about the whole idea now - has this thread made you more determined or put you off?

Thankyou, worktostaysane, didn't know whether to ask or not, glad I did,
xx

The thread has been really interesting chasingsquirrels, thanks for asking. at the moment the thing thats putting me off is the lack on information on how to do it.
thebook i bought, 'unassisted childbirth' was mainly a rant on how awful hospitals are which I found annoying.

so still don't know. anyway, i'm not due until september so i've plenty of time to work it out!

Thing is it's a bit of a minority pursuit in this country, whereas in the States it's more common as the 'free' midwife option isn't available. But there are some UK UC stories I remember from over the years, here for example, 4th and 5th stories down the list, and that woman had a 3rd UC too which you could google for. There's a couple on the Homebirth site too.

I think it's just easier in this country to have an 'oops' BBA and then the midwife deals with the paperwork, I wouldn't fancy turning up at a registry office to register a birth without the legal birth notification stuff, don't want to invite too many questions...

It's not illegal to plan to birth unassisted in this country (the Brian Radley case was a looong time ago and the law has been clarified since then, see AIMS site) but that doesn't mean that you wouldn't potentially have questions asked and possibly social services turning up on your doorstep, which is why if I was planning UC this time I would still have had a midwife on hand. Probably.

WTSS, what do you mean about information on how to do it? You gave birth before, you know what to expect, what more are you looking for?

That's a genuine question, I don't think I would have a problem doing it, and tbh if I had another and the midwife was not there I would not be at all stressed. But then I had a water birth so was doing it all myself, the midwife was only there to reassure dh!

Wrt the placenta, I know my sister only called the midwife about an hour after her ds was born as the placenta had not yet come out. She wasn't panicked about it but said the contractions were starting to really hurt and she wanted it out! Turns out she needed to push a little, and as she was lying back with her ds on her she wasn't quite managing it.

In my case, I thought I felt it come out and asked dh if it was out. He took a look and said 'er...I don't think so' so I started to happily push away. The mw ran over as she was seeing too much blood, and told me to lie back - I complained I could not lie back and push. Turns out the placenta had come out but got stuck in the vagina, so my pushing was only causing me to bleed. She tugged it gently and it came out no problem.

how to do it would include: when to cut the umbilical cord? how to clamp near the belly button so as not to create a ugly old mess of newborn's tummy.

what to do with the placenta afterwards - dont want to bury it or eat it!

i guess thats it really. and what to look for to tell if things are not going right - so stop pushing and pull out placenta instead for example

WTSS are you or your dh going to be in the frame of mind to do those things. Would you consider calling a midwife right after you give birth to help you the more technical side of things. All I know is that my dh would have no clue no matter how much he read up on it. (He sucks in pressure situations)

Message withdrawn

I wanted an unassisted birth with DS3 but dh didn't. We argued discussed the issue throughout pregnancy. When I was in labour he called the midwife who arrived five minutes before the baby with no equipment. She sat in a chair and watched. She needn't have been there.

In the end dh and I went to Relate because we fell out quite badly over this.

slacker you are misleading us all with your nickname.
these sites are fab.

pruners i have come across the sarahjbckley one and have started to google lotus birth but will need to study that more.
i'm sad that my brain seems to have retained the information that the placenta needs to haul ass out of you PDQ or its bad news, anyway, time to reeducate i guess

mom2, i'm thinking that the only technical bit should be the cutting of the cord. i did that last time and it was pretty simple, but i just can't remember the sequence of events as i was so excited that everything had gone so well.

glad you liked them. I used to be really into the UC concept but have lost some confidence over the last few years and don't feel it's for me right now, but I still think it's the purest form of birth. I feel like a bit of a failure paying for midwife support this time.

why did you lose confidence - if thats not too personal a question? please don't reply if so.

spidermama, sorry to hear you and dh fell out. i'm not sure i could go through with this if dh opposed all the way, but i guess i'd just keep quiet as long as poss to fox him, although he'd probably guess.

also, slacker, and anyone else who's interested:
this woman's story is long and kind of odd, but the fact are listed below if you don't want to read the whole thing.
do you think she just got lucky. i'm amazed at her faith and honesty, especially as she had the emergency c-section before...

"It took 10 hours of 'pre-labor'.
I had 80 hours of active labor.
And 5 hours of pushing.
The placenta came out 35 hours after Tygo's birth."

I had a homebirth with just DH and two doulas present - technically my OB should have been there, but he couldn't make it as he was busy doing a cesarean in a hospital about half an hour from my home at the time I started feeling a bit pushy! He arrived just in time to help me deliver the placenta (which I found much more unpleasant than birthing the baby lol). I had already clamped and cut the cord myself!

However in fact I knew he wouldn't be there for the birth, it wasn't really premeditated, as such, but I was so happy and comfortable doing my own thing that I didn't actually get around to asking for him, it was my doula who saw that I was pushing and asked if I wanted him called. (We had discussed all this beforehand and this was a scenario we were all comfortable with). I felt really really calm and happy, and totally safe and comfortable. It was lovely. I should add though that I lived in a country where there are no midwives, and homebirth is quite rare, so that was not an option for me. I would not have liked the feeling that he was hanging about in the next room or whatever as then I would have felt under more pressure. However if midwives had been available I might have opted for that.

As a doula I attended homebirths where the OB was there and he was lovely, very hands off and respectful. But still there was a different atmosphere having a "medical" person there.

One client that I had (who also had a lotus birth) chose to freebirth - myself and another doula were on hand in case she needed us, but in the end she asked us to go and sit outside in the car as it was making her feel inhibited knowing we were downstairs! So this we did, and after her husband came out to tell us that the baby had been born we popped inside to make her some lunch and fold her washing!

Each to their own.

If I was having another baby in the UK, I think I would choose to have a homebirth with a private midwife, and I would ask her to be very hands off, and possibly not even in the room, I'd quite like it to be just me and DH and maybe my two DD's.

I'm pretty much with lulumama in that while I think most times birth is perfectly natural and safe, it is undeniable that there is some element of risk however small. Each of us will have a different view on what degree of risk we feel comfortable with. I think in my mind the "riskiest" part of birth is not the actual birth per se but the part immediately after, for example what if you had a PPH which is the most common cause of maternal mortality - although rare - would you have a birth kit with syntocinon etc? or at the very least a vial of shepherd's purse at hand? would you have an oxygen tank? Or would having even those basic things still be admitting an element of risk?

Anyway I'd be interested to hear how your thoughts evolve!

35 hours after.

worktostaysane I did underplay my contractions. Indeed I sent him out on errands and as soon as he left the house, literally within five seconds of his shutting the door, full on labour kicked in. It was extra-ordinary.

Sadly he came back home and saw that I was at the wildebeast stage and having been through two previous births he knew it meant pushing was imminent so he slunk off and called the midwife.

Right. My kids are finally in bed so I can actually read this thread and some of the links now but I fear a loud majority may well have pitched in to call you a dangrous lunatic with no regard for your own or your baby's health for even considering it. It's not an easy subject to explain to others after all.

Just saw your questions about the cord etc.

The thing with the cord is actually don't clamp too close to the belly button, it's okay to leave a fair bit of cord between baby and clamp (but only clamp once it has stopped pulsing!). In fact I put the clamp a bit close and when the cord dried out it made it tight - had to take her to hospital to have it cut off with cord clamps as ordinary scissors don't work. I guess you could do it the old fashioned way with sterile string!

Placenta - my Dr. took mine to hospital in a yellow bag for clinical waste and they disposed of it. Could you get your local hospital to incinerate it for you? Mine was huge - I thought I was birthing another baby! Anyway it's meant to be great for warding off PND if you are at all susceptible - apparently it can be dried out and put in capsules. Also a piece of placenta put to the lips can supposedly stop PP bleeding as well.

Wow mrsmalumbas. Well done!

I know what you mean about having a m/w around even if in a different room. In an ideal world dh would have guided ds3 out and placed him on my belly. What a lovely moment to remember.

Funnily enough with ds4 from about mid pregnancy I knew I wanted the M/Ws around this time. It was indeed a tricky birth and they did lots of manouvering around to help me get him round the bend. I was glad of their expertise when my ten pound ds4 came down and out OP.