HBAC - do you need a private midwife?

[BumblBeee]

Looking at options for birth in 10 weeks.

Had bad experience with both home birth and hospital last time so don't feel very excited by either choice!

Still I do like being in a pool so considering this as an option.

What happens if your scar does rupture is likely that you and/or the baby would die?

The hospitals are so concerned about this and yet outside the hospitals no one else seems to be.

All thoughts welcome xx

Bumblebee - take a look at Angela Horn's Homebirth website - I think she has some research there regarding vaginal birth's after a caesarean along with some stats regarding scars.

Look under research and then look for "The VBAC Pages".

HTH

Thank you very much xxx

Do you have a local HomeBirth Support Group? Our local one has lots of HBAC mums and women who have had to negociate NHS midwives refusing care for various reasons.

Don't know? Should look into this.

Thanks again for the website link JP. It seems to offer a balanced view.

Glad it's useful BumblBee - hope the birth goes well.

DD was breech - and born as a breech baby at home. We used IMs. I don't think we should have needed to as such (breech birth is meant to be a core midwifery skill), but it did remove a lot of negativity and meant we could choose MWs that we trusted to have the skills we needed. It also meant we had a chance to get to know the MWs before the birth (and vice versa) and I'm sure that played a large part in how well the birth panned out. We were also getting fed up with our NHS CMW, who turned up for the homebirth appointment and went through all the things she wasn't confident to do (waterbirth being one of them, that being before we knew DD was staying bottom down) - it destroyed our confidence in her as an individual and her NHS colleagues by association.

So after all that, I don't think you'd need an IM for a HBAC - but it may remove a lot of negativity and sources of stress, and there may be fringe benefits (ie known care givers and much better post-natal care).

You might also find the homebirthUK mail group useful, supportive and able to offer a lot of advice based on personal experience.

Fingers crossed you have a better experience this time round

Hi- I've just had a hbac on the NHS in Coventry. You cannot be 'made' to go into hospital and your hospital has a duty of care to respect your wishes and send a midwive to you at home. I would suggest that you have a look at the 'AIMS' (Association for Improvement in Maternity Services) book 'AM I Allowed' and 'VBAC' as I found them really helpful. I opted to stay NHS as I couldn't afford an IM and also didn't see why I should have to. I did however employ a 'doula' who really really helped me enjoy the last weeks of pregnancy and also was fantastic at the birth. As for scar rupture- there are loads of stats on this ranging from 0.2%- 1% but just remember that a lot of this research includes induced labours (which they generally won't do now on a vbac mum) and also slight coming away of the scar- which is not a medical emergency. I weighed up the risks and benefits for each option and decided that scar rupture was very serious but very unlikely whereas going into hospital (where no guareentee that you won't rupture or be treated immediately) was likely to result in another section for me (and would have done according to my midwives). Hope this helps- if you contact a local IM they are normally very helpful even if you aren't looking to employ them. A local homebirth group or vbac group (try local NCT as they may have homebirth/ section support worker) would be great to go to if you have one locally (we are about to set up one here) Hope this helps- and good luck!!!!

Rachel xx (Chair-Coventry NCT)

Thanks so very much for the great posts, I really appreciate it xx