Community Midwifes not supporting my home birth

[BabiesEverywhere]

I feel like screaming they won't stop looking for problems. Up to now I have played ball and been to hospital for countless blood tests etc and I am sick of them.

I refused an referal for a growth scan (I don't care if I have a big baby) I was told I had to wait in today to speak to the team leader. My DH took the day off work and she never turned up !!!

Eventually got though to her at 4pm, she said she was going to ring tonight and rearrange for the weekend !!! Thanks a lot, after DH has wasted a holiday day for nothing and I have been stressed waiting for her to turn up

Had a brief chat on the phone and I explained that I am unconcerned by the size of my baby and if there was no medical reason I am happy to stand by not going for loads of growth scans.

But what if you were told you had a 11lb baby, I replied I would still stay at home and have a 'trial of labour' and hope that the scan was out in my favour (i.e. They can be out a pound or more)

She mentioned GD and GTT test, I explained no sugar in wee so was there a need for further testing. She suggested I had GD in last pregnancy and I explained I had done a GTT test and passed with flying colours, I just grow large babies (8 lbs 12 ozs last one)

So then she started going on about how she didn't want my baby to die, due to shoulder problems and that they don't carry the right kit to resuss babies. (WTF, I wonder what her boss would think of that statement)

That she didn't care if I hated her for transferring me. !?! (Bearing in mind this is 2 months before my due date) and on zero evidence, she has already decided that she intents on transferring me to hospital

I am so damm angry, upset and feel so let down

Tomorrow ? The next midwife appointment is was 8 days in the future, so I have nothing tomorrow, except housework and play with DD

Good suggestion Pruners

StarlightMcKenzie, Glad your homebirth team is good. Fingers cross you get the birth you want.

StarlightMcKenzie, Glad your homebirth team is good. Fingers cross you get the birth you want.

babieseverywhere, have not read whole thread, but get the general gist. As a community midwife myself I feel that most community mws are supportive of hb and would not generally try to disuade you unless there is a good reason. You say you are low risk, how big was your previous pph and was it caused by something that is unlikely to recur like a forceps delivery? Also I feel that size of the baby at 32 weeks could be very inaccurate, much better to try and guess it at 36 weeks or later. I am a very relaxed mw and have attended many hb's but if I were expecting someone to have an 11 pounder either at home or in hospital I would be very concerned. They rarely come out without difficulty if they really are that big. What I am saying I suppose is whatever happens, don't do it without a mw as that would be a huge risk. Maybe you should try and contact some other mw's in your area, you might well find that many of them are much more supportive. If you find that several of them aren't then maybe they have a point. Having said that I have once looked after a very high risk woman at home, I found it incredibly stressful, but she would not have realised that as I supported her 100% as she had made the decision, it had been discussed at length and she had stuck with the decision. All was well in the end, but I didn't sleep very well that night thinking about what could have been.

Babies, I am local to you and an IM who is on a career break due to two little ones making on call difficult. My email is info @ lancashiremidwiferypractice . co . uk if you need some support or just some research to back your case get in touch

Maxbear,

My first DD's consultant sent a letter to this hospital saying I had a small PPH due to forcep delivery with an epidosdy (delibrate cut in your bits.) So yes, totally unlikely to reoccur naturally.

My last baby was 8lbs 12lbs, family babies range from 8 lbs to 9.5 lbs and I expect my next baby to be somewhere within that range. Plus my mum had three babies each smaller than the last !!!

curlywurlycremeegg, Thanks

Starlight, I've had EBL of 800 and 700 mls with my 2 homebirths,no symptoms of anemia with either , i know WHO say that loss of 500mls plus should be called a pph - but I gather that is taking into consideration women with very poor nutrition who may be less able to cope with a heavy loss.

"As a community midwife myself I feel that most community mws are supportive of hb and would not generally try to disuade you unless there is a good reason."

Maxbear - I wish I had your confidence that midwives were generally supportive of homebirth. I do wonder how you'd explain how it is,if all midwives are equally supportive of women having the option of homebirth, that you get homebirth rates of 10% in some areas, and 1% in others? In my area more babies are bba's than planned homebirths. Round here women are almost NEVER told of the option to stay at home by their community midwives - no matter how low risk they are. You're made to feel that suitable candidates for homebirth are vanishingly rare and ANY, literally ANY tiny variation from the entirely straightforward is used to push women towards hospital. And women are not told about the possible additional disadvantages for them in choosing hospital over home.

I've spoken to two women in the past week who've been told that because their babies are coming up around 2/3 weeks large for dates that they're better off on the consultant led unit than at home. Neither has GD or any other complications but they've been called in several times for additional scans, which goes against NICE guidelines and which have left them feeling very anxious. I know for a fact that over 80% of women in our CLU labour and birth sitting up or lying on the bed. It just strikes me as terribly ironic that while staff are willing to do almost anything to keep you from having a shoulder dystocia at home (something they're clearly terrified of having to deal with) once you get into hospital they do bugger all to reduce the chances of it happening to you there.

Maxbear,
Our area has a terrible homebirth rate and transfers to hospital are very high.

The community midwifes only have limited experiences with 'perfectly normal pregnancies' so something as mundane as a potential large baby sends them into a spiral of panic.

It sounds like these local midwives only know how to transfer to hospital and also have limited equipment and training, this should be addressed as a matter of urgency.

If further training does not help these women, surely they should be looking at a different vocation, if delivering babies at home is too upsetting for them.

Why should we the women trying to assess this service be turned away because of the issues the midwives have ?

assess access this service

Agree with everything you say Babies - our area is the same. Women are bullied over homebirth, when the real issue is the midwives' lack of confidence and experience, and their inability to treat women like adults able to make informed choices for themselves and their babies.

I'm obviously lucky in the area I work in, although sadly it is not rare to not have enough mw's to provide the service that we offer. I would not want to work somewhere that homebirth is looked on as such a worry.

Starlight after I had my homebirth my blood loss was put at 500ml but my mw said to me a few days later that she might have underestimated it a bit. I would have guessed more like 700ml myself. (difficult to tell in the pool) I will be going for a hb if have another baby so no it would not scare me, but I think it would scare quite a few mw's. Again in my area people are much less worried about that sort of thing than in the other two area's I have worked in.

I would say babieseverywhere that a 'small pph after a forceps delivery' is not worth worrying about at all, if your baby is looking to be similar sort of size or slightly bigger then again no worries. Just worrying if it is very very big (which it probably won't be, 11 pounders are few and far between )

maxbear - I had a macrosomic baby at home (he was 10lbs 12oz). I knew he was big but chose to stay at home because then I could have my IM who I trusted to do the delivery. We'd talked through - practically rehearsed - what we'd do in the event of sd as we both knew I was at higher risk of this happening (1st baby 9lbs 6oz, second baby diagnosed with GD). What really got to me was that both the doctors and midwives were very keen to shunt me into hospital (which I did understand) but there was no thought paid to what they were going to do once I got there to help me avoid having a sd in the first place. I can't understand why there's this obsession with stopping you delivering at home if your baby is big, yet they're quite happy for you to come in an have an epidural or give birth sitting on your arse. I was left feeling as though I was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Risk a poorer outcome at home in the rare event of a sd occuring and proving really difficult to resolve using the usal manouvres, or go into hospital and increase the likelyhood of having it happen in the first place because of their insistence on CEFM, nil by mouth and bed bound birth for all women with GD - regardless of whether you are well controlled or not/on insulin or diet controlled. It's really, really crap.

Update here