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.

What hospital is it? I had a homebirth in SE London recently. You’re welcome to DM me!

I had two home births with kings and loved it, the first was arguably better as I had one midwife the whole time but the second wasn’t bad. My existing DC were there for the birth of the next but DP was there too.

You get 2 midwives for the last bit of labour so I imagine if you need to be taken in one could go in the ambulance with the paramedics (for my first birth both ambulances had 3 crew so plenty of hands but I don’t think that’s the norm) and the second could maybe wait with the toddler or something till someone came to get them. Worth a conversation at lease

Which SE London Hospitals? I moved from St George's to St Thomas' to come under the home birth team and ended up birthing in the hospital. I had been trying to avoid St Thomas' as had terrible experiences with them with previous two, especially poor care from senior obstetricians in my second pregnancy but honestly the third was ok. The midwife team was pretty shit and again senior obstetricians were far from great but the birth was fine.

I can't honestly think of a SE London hospital I wouldn't be happy to give birth in, in an emergency and the home birth teams are all fine. If I was there again I would probably still swap for the chance of a home birth.

Hi all!
I'm currently at King's for antenatals. That's where I gave birth to my first. Was great so I'm pretty confident and decided to register with them for DC2 although it is an hour away from us (with recent roadworks around hither green could me even more 😱).
Our local hospital would be Lewisham, which I've heard horror stories of especially for emergencies (my case, should something go wrong during a home birth).
Tbf I was booked for a meet & greet and a private 'tour' of the home birth team for next week, so hopefully that would help clear things up.

Essentially my reluctance lies in the fact I might need to be admitted to the hospital, and I would much rather be at king's than Lewisham.

You absolutely must sort childcare for if you do transfer. I've had home births and my last resulted in an unexpected transfer. Thankfully I had my mother there to care for my other children.

DH is gonna be there and also potentially another family member (lives 15 minutes away, but due to working far I am not sure she is gonna make it on time).

I would prefer to have DH with me all the time though.

Even with a homebirh you need childcare arranged. A midwife cannot wait with a toddler, if the baby is born they have 2 patients to help if you need transferring.

Two things here if you think you might be admitted to hospital then how is it low risk ? therefore stay with Kings

You definitely need Childcare some sort even for a home birth. Things can go wrong you might have to be transferred to hospital, The child could be distressed or a hundred other things.

Practically everyone who’s had more than one child has the birth -Childcare issue.