Home birth for first baby

[MrsMagpie]

I'm at 11wks with my first unplanned but very much wanted baby. The trouble is I hate hospitals and I'm a very private person. The thought of a hospital birth fills me with dread. I've been doing a bit of reading and a home birth sounds much more appealing. Is there any reason why a first timer shouldn't go for it?

Just in support of 1dilemma - my SIL had a wonderful homebirth, very easy labour, didn't even tear. When they cut the cord, my niece stopped breathing and went grey. She was transferred by ambulance (thankfully at 3 am, so no traffic) to King's NICU, where she spent a week in an induced coma on full life support. Her lungs were full of water and meconium and she was monitored for her first year - thankfully she is fine, largely because they lived minutes from KCH and the ambulance got there so fast my SIL had to stay at home to deliver the placenta. I am NOT opposed to homebirth, I've read the stats, and the only reason I've not opted for one myself is my midwife has said I'd be too anxious after what my SIL experienced to benefit. I hate hospitals too, and I think anxiety and stress in labour is the most unhelpful thing imaginable, so I agree homebirths are probably safer most of the time on that basis. But I do think it may be worth considering how close you'd be by ambulance to a NICU, or surgical unit for yourself, if anything went wrong and you had to be transferred for serious levels of intervention. Not trying to rain on parades or anything, just that if my niece hadn't lived so close she would either have been dead or very disabled. (Though what happened there was rare - obviously.)

Oh, and we must be at about the same stage - I've my scan next week, due on the 19th Nov.?

Hi Qally. To be honest i'm not sure when I'm due. First date given to me by the GP was 28th Dec. I felt sure i couldn't be that far along so mentally adjusted it to mid Jan. the Mid wife had a good feel of my tum and said she think i'm a bit further along! This scan can't happen soon enough!

MrsM, I was the same, hated hospitals with a vengeance and our local one has really bad rates of MRSA. My m/ws were really supportive of the homebirth option, which meant i had really relaxing appointments - they came out and visited to take bp readings etc or i popped over to the local clinic. Only had to go to hosp for the scans.
I also did hypnobirthing to help with relaxation beforehand and that really helped keep my bp down right up until the end.
Parents/family were reassured as we only live 5mins away from hospital by car (10 mins driving sedately I guess, 5 by ambulance!).

In the end, homebirth support was withdrawn when i was more than 10days overdue and my bp started to fluctuate too much outside their guidelines, so i was admitted to hospital anyway, but I don't think i would have coped with the pregnancy if i'd known that's where i would end up. Planning a home (water)birth gave me hope and it was brilliant using the birthing pool to relax in beforehand!

So, no, there is no reason whey you shouldn't do it as a first timer, if you're healthy and have no complications during the pregnancy. The nice thing is that you can change your mind at any time if you decide you want or need to go into hospital, but it's a damn sight harder to switch from hosp to HB.

Best of luck, make the most of the pregnancy