homebirths

[graciem]

hi im new. im hoping to have a homebirth with baby 2 but i have a million questions. can anyone help please.

lots of people on here have had homebirths so fire away!

What are your areas of concern?

i had an episiotomy and ventous delivery with baby 1 and alot of pethidene( which i didnt like). looking back i dont think i felt incontrol of my labour and not as relaxed as maybe i could have been. i was 5cm b4 i went into hospiatl and seemed to do quite well at home but at 8cm my daughter got stuck and i was given the drip to accelerate the labour. i would like to aviod this intervention. however my daughters heartrate dropped and she was delivered in 11 mins, hence the episiotomy and ventous. im worried about this sort of thing happening again.

Right, the drip may have contributed to your daughter's distress (heartrate dropping), and that would have led to the episiotomy and ventouse.

When you're in labour, the hormone doing most of the work is oxytocin. It's also the hormone you release when bfing and when having sex and when falling in love. Imagine doing any of those three things when you're frightened ie. releasing adrenaline! You can't do it easily because adrenaline blocks oxytocin release. So lots of women find their labours stop or slow when they get to hospital because of the new environment that is not conducive to the things that oxytocin is involved in.

So you may not find your labour slowing down at all if you stay at home.

Does that help at all?

Try this website for all the information you could ever want about home births!

I've had four so ask away

The heart rate drop may have been down to the pethidine. Depending on the reasons for this happening, it is probably unlikely to happen again.

The 'got stuck' thing is interesting. This happened to me in my first pregnancy and I know lots of other women who have had versions of this in their first birth, blamed on failure to progress, small pelvis etc. Many of whom went on to have vaginal deliveries with no problem.

I also had a very long labour with my home birthed last baby (the same size as dd1 who got stuck) but was incredibly active during it - lots of stair climbing and bouncing on a birth ball to help position him. I was quite surprised by what a difference active birth made.

It does sound like it's worth trying again for a home birth - it certainly cuts your chances of an episiotomy or ventouse happening. Home birth can also give you a sense of control. Ask away with questions here, a lot of us have done it

Go for it.

I had similar experiences to you with my first birth - 24 hour labour, episiotomy, ventouse, feeling out of control of it all.

My second was a homebirth, and totally unassisted/natural/drug free (water birth).

Discuss it with your midwife - I'm sold on the idea now, I felt so much more that it was MY birth, not the hospitals!

My first birth was also episiotomy and ventouse due to a slight heart-rate drop in the pushing stage.

They were unconcerned about it happening in a second birth (which are often smoother anyway) but in any event, I felt confident about getting help quickly if there were problems as I live close to a hospital and ambulance response times are v fast. These things don't usually arise without any warning and you would be transferred if there were any concerns.

You could ask for ambulance response times for your postcode - in my case they compared very favourably to the time taken to page a doctor in my first labour!

oh and I did delivery at home without assistance second time around and recovery was MUCH faster.

sorry - that should have read, I did deliver.

Typing and child-wrangling at the same time!

Gracie - I had a very similar experience to yours when DD1 was born, right down to the drip, episiotomy and ventouse. It was very traumatic and I decided on a homebirth for DC2. This went really smoothly, I felt the first contractions about 11pm, midwife arrived at 1am, baby popped out at 2.54am. She was 9lb too, a pound heavier than DD1!
With DC3, I again booked a home birth. The labour was longer and slower, more like DD1. I was 5cm dilated when the midwife arrived at 9pm. 11 hours later I was fully dilated and the baby was stuck. At this point in hospital I would have been lined up for all manner of intervention. Instead, the midwife made me put some clothes on, prised the gas and air away from me and took me for a walk down the street. I came back in, knelt up on the bed and the baby's head popped out so fast the midwife's words were actually "oh, shit".
Half an hour later I was cleaned up and tucked up in bed with my baby. I dread to think what would have happened if I had had a hospital birth.

thank u, its good to hear such positive stories. i certainly feel more confident now.