Homebirth/freebirth with multiples?

[Getthebag2023]

Not asking for me! Trying to keep an open mind/ get a lay of the land as someone close to me has suggested this is her plan.

The thought terrifies me personally, but thought i would ask MN if they have done it safely themselves or know someone who has? I also know there's a difference between homebirth (with medics present) and freebirth (with no medics present) so clarification on any answers appreciated!

I’m so sorry @MrsAvocet. That must have been very difficult for everyone.

You must take a bit of comfort from the fact that you did try.

She'd be mad to consider it, she could die and/or lose both babies.
Women only gave birth to twins at home in the olden days because they had to, it was very risky then and still is!

Sure it’s the way it was done for centuries… any idea what the mortality rate was???

Thing is even back in the days of yore, birthing mothers would have been attended by experienced women, who were called midwives. In fact midwives were regulated in the UK before nurses were.

Anyone seriously considering a free birth is playing russian roulette

No I would not have considered any kind of home birth for myself under any circumstances. Things can go wrong very quickly. Too much is at stake.

I cannot imagine why anyone would do this, and reject all the advances in midwifery and neonatal care that have taken place in the last 200 years.

IMO utterly selfish, bonkers and verging on neglectful.

Fuck NO. Not with multiples. It's always got to be considered a potentially high risk birth.

I happily had mine quickly and naturally in hospital with little intervention but I knew I was very lucky that there were no complications. Even so, quite a lot of staff are on standby for multiple births...

It's certainly true that years back twins would be born at home, and midwives were skilled in this. But most midwives these days are getting little experience of vaginal delivery of twins, particularly in a home birth setting. I think this would be high risk - It's that tricky undescended second twin, isn't it?

As for freebirthing twins, this is nuts. I like to be respectful of women's birth choices, but this is a bad one.

I was 11 before I found out that “Auntie” Sarah from our village visited the grave of her twin babies who were born and died before the two singleton boys we all knew. She didn’t free birth, she just delivered at home with the Dr in the 1960s like many women.

Free-birthers should google infant mortality in pre-industrial times.

I think this person had read too much hippy shite on the internet.

The term freebirthing annoys me to be frank. Sounds all light and happy doesn't it? Unassisted birth doesn't sound quite as romantic. Sure, pregnancy and birth are natural processes but they are bloody hazardous natural processes. We may have gone too far with medicalisation of childbirth in some respects but to pretend that there are no benefits to medical and midwifery care is nuts, and an insult to women all over the world past and present who have had no choice but to give birth alone with no skilled assistance and suffered terribly as a result. I doubt they see anything "free" about their birth experiences. I am all for women making informed choices about how they give birth but this kind of thing strikes me as ill informed and self indulgent. (Though I accept personal experiences have coloured my views.)

Twin mum here and there is no way I would've had a home birth

My babies were full term and both head down, labour and delivery was uneventful and went beautifully but twin 2 needed extra support after as it was quite a shock entering the world! I don't like to think what would've happened if we weren't at the hospital with all the fantastic midwifes and doctors to help us.

I rarely comment on threads as more of a lurker but I feel quite strongly about this one.

no

madness

My friends has beautiful twin toddlers, the second was an emergency caesarean and wouldn't be here is she hadn't been giving birth somewhere prepared for this eventuality

probably nor would she

Thanks everyone, I think my own views align with the majority of comments here. I just wanted to sense check myself a little and see if it was just me being closeminded or not. Everyone's stories very much valued.

If the babies had a voice, what would they choose? I'm glad mum gave birth to me in a hospital with lots of doctors. Who wants Russian Roulette played with their own lives?