I gave birth in my bathroom so why...

[foxytocin]

good one

FA- no I didn't need to transfer fortunately. THey gave me a drug methergine which causes the uterus to contract and stop the bleeding. IT was scarey and it puts me off giving birth again, as it also happened after dd2's birth- which was also a homebirth.

Yes, I agree how frightening it is. I had syntometrine which seemed to do the same thing.
I didn't bleed with ds1, and nobody could tell me why it happened last time, I would love to know.

all the people on that article who have commented negatively seem to forget that babies are born compromised in hospital, and mothers don;t necessarily get the best care either.

I'm very of my friend's lovely hb experiences (3 in all). She's a very quick labourer though, first out in four hours, next two were under an hour, I think the third was 35 mins from first contraction to last push so she would never have got to hospital in rural Derbyshire. However her stories are always lovely. I had planned cs for footling breech. I'm sure it would have been possible to have a vb but I don't think in those circs I would have been allowed to have a hb. I was certainly too scared to push for one. Not sure what our PCTs policy is on home VBACs if we have another but judging by their "all breech babies should be delivered by cs" it doesn't look good.

FA - they had already given me syntocinin and the uterus had started to contract but about an hour after the birth I suddenly had a huge amount of pain in my back and felt blood, and they gave me methergine. Apparently they don't give it in the hospital because of the risks of the drug. I didn't bleed with dd1. I just makes me not want to give birth again, it's such a horrible feeling!

i had 2 at home, because i give birth so quickly, one born 3 mins after getting to hospital( in dublin where i was on holiday, as she came early), and one i was taken in early and had my waters broken to avoid an unattended delivery

i preferred the home births

Snaf Re the doctor beng a fuckwit saying the human body is not well designed for birth, I watched a documentary about the human body and its design and it really isn't designed that well otherwise the baby wouldn't need to turn one way and then the other to try to get out. It was very interesting actually. Other mammals have much wider pelvises and their babies come straight out no messing - they are not in nearly as much pain. They also come out much more developed which humans can't do as their heads would be much too large to fit through our pelvic cavities.

gabygirl agree - I had an emergency CS and he was out minutes after a failed ventouse. My baby was completley turned the wrong way with a great big head and his heart rate dropped while I was trying to push him out. He may have died had I waited for an ambulance. I admit I was unlucky and in a minority. I am not against HBs at all and would love to have one but I guess I'm not a candidate after last time and would probably be too scared.

I'll bear that documentary in mind, Amberc

at the mw actually recommending a hb. You can't have them at all in my area. I do know someone who delivered at home by herself a few weeks ago though . I don't fancy that but I don't fancy going into hospital either.

Gabygirl is right about crash sections - I had one within 3 minutes of the alarm being raised, general anaesthetic, baby out, no-one even told me I was having a cs. BUT here's the interesting thing - it took the mw more than 10 minutes to realise there was a problem, because she was busy moaning about how busy the labour ward was, all the while completely ignoring the "continuous monitoring" which showed ds3 was very very distressed.

You can have all the equipment in the world available in a hospital environment, but it is no substitute for having someone there with you in labour actually paying attention. Sadly I was never a candidate for a hb for any of mine, but I can completely understand why someone would choose one rather than being left to labour alone (as many are) in hospital.

One of my friends lost a baby because of the hospital's incompetence. That's one of the reasons I like home births - you have one or even two midwives captive and interested at all times, it's cleaner, quicker, and usually safer for low risk mums.

We have something like a 25% hb rate around here because our midwife is a huge fan and very good at them.

I would argue that millions of years of evolution would contravene any documentary you watched Amberc, IMHO.

Boobz - what it was saying actually (all based on scientific fact) was that we have kind of evolved backwards from our animal state which gave birth easily through a much larger pelvis! Just thought it was interesting that's all.

mamainstripes which trust is saying that they are not doing home births at all? very curious as no trust afaik can deny women home births by saying that 'they are not doing them'.

Please reveal.

As to crash sections, I had one with 2nd baby. I did not go into labour with either DC, DD was 2 weeks over and DS one week early, waters broke but no contractions. I sometimes wonder if I am unable to go spontaneously into labour.

With my crash section, DS was born within 7 mins of the midwife/doc noting that DS was distressed. While I was being wheeled to theatre the docs were attaching cables to me, I was given a GA and was out within 3 mins.

The midwife who was administering the induction drugs kept bumping up the dose so that within 3 hours I was screaming for an epidural and DS's heartbeat was dropping.

In comparison to DD's birth, also induction but much gentler. I laboured for 8 hours before being given an epidural then another 8 hours or so before she was born and it was a lovely birth.

I truly believe (and my gynae was in agreement, she was furious with the hospital) that the crash CS would not have been necessary if the induction had been handled better. I am sure that there are far too many crash sections done that could be avoided.

our biggest mistake was standing up and walking on our "hind" legs - this means that to keep a pregnancy for 9m our pelvises have to be small enough to hold onto the full-size foetus and our cervixes (cervices?) have to be tight enough to stop the foetus falling out. No other mammal really has this problem. So to some extent both sides are right on this - we were originally designed properly but have evolved to muck up our own design somewhat.

I had a hospital birth, wouldn't have risked a HB due to blood thinning agents and age but I was left pretty much to myself and it all went smoothly for me, I know i was lucky with that though.

My sister also had a crash section due to FTP - her DD had the cord round her neck and was effectively bungeeing up and down! She never dilated more than 5cm so the CS was necessary.

I would agree that some women's bodies are not well designed for child birth. My body seems to be able to give birth easily, but I have friend whose pelvis shape means that it is far too dangerous for her to give birth naturally. Many women and babies still die in child birth if they do not have access to good medical help, and as for women who are left with serious incontinence and fistula problems following child birth. Nature gets it right a lot of the time, but by no means all of the time.

Greenlawn - you are right - you have have the most technical equipment in the world, but it's useless if no one interprets the results. I was very lucky to have two such highly qualified midwives for my home births.

My MW told me that first of all it is illegal to give birth without a midwife or doctor in attendance, unless you genuinely can't help it, and also that it is part of their Royal College of Midwives professional code to attend any birth that a women calls upon them to attend. So a Trust cannot just decide not to 'allow' home births because it contravenes those two laws/rules.

I'm pleased we have a (reasonably) good obstetric service in this country, but in my heart of hearts I think hospital should be for those with real obstetric or social problems and the very scared, frankly. I have no idea why Trusts obsess about getting women in there, because surely providing beds and massive amounts of postnatal care as a result of avoidable interventions is more expensive than sending a couple of midwives around the corner for a few hours? Any health economists reading this who have a view?

LOL thumbwitch - 'our cervixes have to be tight enough to stop the foetus falling out'

foxytocin its Derbyshire. According to my mw, no homebirths at all for the whole of Derbyshire nhs trust for the foreseeable future. Hardly any midwives in the hospital either so its a choice of labouring alone at home or labouring alone in a hospital. A cleaner stayed with me for quite a bit during my last labour so it wasn't all bad

I am suprised that the GP was shocked that she'd had a first baby at home. I had twins so had to be in hospital (well, some say not but even I after using Ina May Gaskin as my bible for the last months of pregnancy could not agree to that) but would have loved to have been at home.

I think I'll have my next baby in hospital too tho so that I can have a few days away from the twins

"it is illegal to give birth without a midwife or doctor in attendance, unless you genuinely can't help it"

I think this is wrong. It is illegal for a non qualified person to attend a birth in a medical capacity but they can't make it a legal requirement to attend hospital to deliver a baby.

I think I might have got what she said a bit confused then. I took it to mean that a couple can't just opt out of all care and do a DIY job with the DP helping and no-one else, but I assumed you had to have a professional helper there unless you couldn't get one in time.

When we had a home birth once and the little card the midwife posts to the registrar got delayed in the post, there were some comments at the registry office and we had to tell them who attended the birth.

However I can see requiring a professional attendant would be unworkable now you have pointed it out because you would probably have to arrest everyone who gave birth at home unexpectedly, or in the car on the way to hospital, I suppose.

Am I right about the RCM rules?

I absolutely agree that for a very small proportion of women, nature doesn't work in their favour. But that's the case for any physical process - in the majority of the population the body will do what it's supposed to do - for some it won't. And yes, evolution has meant that it's not as easy for us as it is for other species.

For example, true cephalopelvic disproportion is still very rare - especially in the West where we don't generally have to contend with risk factors such as rickets. The fact that for some women this might be an issue doesn't validate sweeping statements about the design of women's bodies generally and their inherent ability to give birth without instrumental or surgical assistance.

Risk should always be a serious consideration in any decision around place of birth. There are lots of reasons why homebirth might not be the best option, but the basic design of your body is only rarely one of them. At the risk of sounding like a sad old hippy, I wish that, culturally, we could get some confidence back in our ability to do this birth thing. The fear and ignorance that surrounds any discussion of homebirth achieves nothing and only serves to further embed us into a culture where litigation limits our choices and destroys our confidence in ourselves. End of rant