Considering home birth but worried about changing hospitals and toddler childcare

[Angelyogini]

Hi all,

Currently 23 weeks pregnant.
Pregnancy classed low risk, and have discussed birthing at home on the last midwife appointment.

My issue: antenatal care is in a big hospital in London where i had my first baby, totally satisfied with the experience. Annoyingly i'm outside their catchment area for home birth.

Would need to transfer care to a different SE London hospital, which I dread. Also, 100% guarantee that pregnancy will remain risk free doesn't exist. And in case of emergency I would need to be transferred there.

Home birth would be preferred as we do not have childcare for my toddler and DH works a lot, afraid he will miss it.

Any advice?

I would compare the home birth stats of the unit you want to give birth in versus the unit that would cover your home birth.

The other thing to think about is that you're assuming it will be fine for your older child to be present in your home birth and of course a lot of siblings are and do not give a hoot. Others are worried by the experience or don't understand it enough to give their mum space to birth a human. I still think you need to think about childcare for the birth.

Thanks for this.
I have contacted the potential new hospital which declined a visit/appointment until I am fully registered with them. This doesn’t give me a lot of options as i would only base my thinking on word of mouth. I heard great things about the home birth team. Not so about the in-hospital experience.

Working on childcare arrangements atm. still scared of the unpredictability of labour.

You probably need childcare, even if it’s someone at home with your toddler. What would you do if you had to have a hospital birth?

I wouldn’t underestimate the value of care you’re happy with. That is golden. If you’re at Tommy’s I absolutely wouldn’t move.

Somebody will still need to be doing childcare for your toddler even if you have a homebirth. The midwives will be focussed on you and not the toddler and you won't be doing it at times either.

Plus if you do need to transfer to hospital you will need somewhere for the toddler to go at a moment's notice.

You dont need to visit them to see their statistics.

I think the most important thing is finding someone, your mum or mother in law, who can come down and stay for a whole when the new baby is due and until you get in the swing of things at home with 2 young children. You need help with childcare at unpredictable times irrespective of where you give birth.