Home Birth--How late can you book one?

[NBD]

I'm about a week away from my due date and I've suddenly decided I would really like a home birth. Is this out of the question you think?

I don't think it is a huge problem. I read on antother thread a lady who arranged a homebirth and gave birth 4 days later. Contact your midwife/hospital ASAP. Good luck!

In theory, if you ring up in labour and say you've decided to birth at home they should support you in a homebirth, so you've probably got a little while yet .

Their policy may be that you need to "book" howevermany days/weeks in advance, but they have a duty of care to support you. They may have more justification for saying they don't have the staff (which isn't an infrequent "reason" why people are told they can't have a home birth), though, as you won't really have given them time to plan and provide facilities. I'm not sure they can deny you a homebirth on those grounds, though, however late you book.

If you do run into difficulties, contact www.aims.org.uk and have a look at www.homebirth.org.uk - I'm not sure if they have specific advice for this one. The homebirthUK yahoo mail group is also very supportive and may well have suggestions for you.

Fingers crossed things go well for you

There are some midwife teams down in the south of England where the woman do not decide their place of birth until they are actually in labour - fabulous! To answer your question, basically it is up to you but in the interests of the midwives organisation then let them know as soon as possible. The midwives will need to work out their on-call rota and some teams need to arrange to have gases delivered to your house prior to labour and usually they want to go through a home birth info pack with you to ensure you are informed about the "risks" of homebirth. I always find that really amusing because no one goes through a pack with you to advise you of the risks of hospital birth!

howdie, do you know where to find that wonderful 'consent' contract someone wrote about giving birth in a hosp., informing of the risks of?

sorry NAK

Best to talk to m/wife asap in case there are health issues in your case which may suggest against a homebirth.

Other than that, my mwife said yes fine you can have a homebirth, but if we are too busy and there are no midwives availble then you can't. Not holding out much hope tbh since our local delivery suite has been closed umpteen times this year due to lack of space/midwives

Do you mean this one on the AIMS site Foxy?:

www.aims.org.uk/Journal/Vol19No4/InformedConsentHospital.pdf

yes that is yhe one. priceless. need to save a copy.

iloveautumn - if you want a home birth then you should really get onto aims. Nuts and bolts of the matter are that their staffing issues are not your problem - if you have told them you are planning a home birth they have a duty of care to support you in the birth of your choice. AIMS will be good at supporting you and helping you acheive that goal in the face of opposition.

Fingers crossed for you both