Unassisted Accidental Homebirth... Lets share amazing labour/birth videos we've seen.

[newmomma]

Awesome!!!

Thought it might be nice to share videos of inspiring/amazing births we've been watching (come on we're all doing it!).

Good ones!!

This isn't me obviously

The figures show the proportion of British women giving birth by Caesarean section has increased threefold over the past three decades.

The rate in England in 1970 was 4.5 per cent, now it is nearer 16 per cent and still rising.

This trend has occurred without any evidence of a corresponding rise in obstetric needs for women to have Caesarean sections. It looks as if the criteria for performing Caesareans has been reduced without any increase in genuine medical need. (NCT)

Chellesgirl you sound hopelessly naive to the realities and vagaries of childbirth.

Should you ever qualify and get to set up your birthing centre don't be suprised if you become the most hated woman in town with attitudes like yours.

Chelle, I really feel that vanity caesarians are a red herring. In the UK the NHS will not do them without clinical evidence, so they will be done in private hospitals. If somebody feels so strongly about it that they are willing to pay several thousand pounds to have one they are not doing it lightly either. And why on earth would you even bother to take those women to heart? They are not representative of the vast majority of people who are not willing to undergo major and potentially life-threatening surgery for trivial reasons. It's not really about childbirth if you elect a caesarian for trivial reasons (lord knows what those reasons would be frankly). There's nothing glamorous about a C section believe me. This really does come under the heading of "None of my Business". If you want to exercise yourself on something, work on becoming a wise and reflective birth supporter (which is what you are as a midwife) for your women, being a positive presence in their lives when they need it the most.

And apologies to the OP for taking the thread off track but really Chellegirl sounds quite mad.

nancy I dont mind what you think, seriously it doesnt bother me -they are your opinions.

Chelle, what was the rate of foetal and maternal death and morbidity in 1970? That is an extremely relevant question.

duchesse DOnt worry I have attended births, I do know what being a supportive perosn means. I really wish people wouls stop trying to pick at these littel things, if I dint support women having babies, I wouldnt be doing what I do, nor wanting to help them gain a natural delivery and wholesome birth experience. This country is too medicalised when it comes to birth.

Yes bibbity but the correlation they were trying to make is that 30 yrs ago there was no hearing of women wnating cs's for cosmetic reasons and cause its a trend.

Was going to post, but I think Duchesse has said everything I wanted to. (Also, Duchesse has pointed out elsewhere that there may be cases where an increased section rate is actually a positive thing - for example where it replaces high cavity forceps which are extremely dangerous for mother and child).

Gals, sorry to link to another thread and ruin a perfectly lovely thread about perfect birth, but have you seen this thread, Chelle? There are some comments from mothers whose pelvic floors have been ruined by instrumented vaginal delivery when a CS would probably have caused less damage. Since no studies have really been done on the after effects of forceps and ventouse, it is difficult to find some blunt figures regarding morbidity (which I think is more relevant than mortality).

By all means, Chelle, go out into your life as a midwife trying your damndest to help women achieve a beautiful calm peaceful birth. Nobody could fail to want that and I applaud you for that. But please please do so with an open mind. Childbirth is not risk free and never has been. The maternal and foetal death and morbidity rate in areas without maternity services is still very high; women are not having beautiful home births just because they do not have access to caesarians. When it all works, it's lovely. When it doesn't go according to plan, we are very fortunate to have access to modern medicine.

Also, my apologies to OP for taking part in the thread hijack - I greatly enjoyed the videos, they are lovely. And (apologies for repeating myself) I was glad Devilwearsprada included one of a c-section, as it brought back my very positive memories of mine. (It may have been a second-class way of producing a baby to some, but for me it was the birth of my DS and a wonderful moment in my life).

recent study of nearly six million births has found that the risk of death to newborns delivered by voluntary Caesarean section is much higher than previously believed.

Researchers have found that the neonatal mortality rate for Caesarean delivery among low-risk women is 1.77 deaths per 1,000 live births, while the rate for vaginal delivery is 0.62 deaths per 1,000. Their findings were published in this month's issue of Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care.

Intrauterine hypoxia lack of oxygen can be both a reason for performing a Caesarean section and a cause of death, but even eliminating those deaths left a neonatal mortality rate for Caesarean deliveries in the cases studied at more than twice that for vaginal births.

"Neonatal deaths are rare for low-risk women on the order of about one death per 1,000 live births but even after we adjusted for socioeconomic and medical risk factors, the difference persisted," said Marian F. MacDorman, a statistician with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the lead author of the study.

Part of the reason for the increased mortality may be that labor, unpleasant as it sometimes is for the mother, is beneficial to the baby in releasing hormones that promote healthy lung function. The physical compression of the baby during labor is also useful in removing fluid from the lungs and helping the baby prepare to breathe air.

All the 1970 stats include that of malformed babies and many other idications of ill health - reason being that people didnt 'opt' for a section back then.

duchess please please - your still confusing it..I am not in any way saying that a cs that a mother or baby needs is wrong - in no way - it helps to save lives. please dont confuse this with what im trying to say about el cs and that of the irrational thining of the mother and that her body is going to get ruined.

and I know you dont want me to 'worry' myself with it..but I do, cause its now a trend that people dont realise is getting much larger. And its scary that women feel the need to have to do this.

Chelle - it seems to me you're the one deliberately confusing the issue. No-one is contesting your stats about low-risk births, but you insist on continuing to conflate "elective" and "mother who's worried her body will get ruined". I repeat what I said above - "elective" simply means "planned in advance", and most are planned for medical reasons, i.e. they are the births which, in hte light of the mother's medical history and information from scans, and previous pregnancies, are unlikely to be low risk.

Chelle, if you were my midwife I would find you fucking patronising and would not want you anywhere near me.

I have read probably a lot more research on the subject than you over the last 16 years. I have given birth to four babies in a variety of settings and ways. I refer you to my previous comments and ask you to answer the questions I ask rather than keep hammering away like the person with limited empathy that you are coming across as.

you havent asked me any questions other than the one on 1970's death rate - its not patronising I just want you to understand that im not on about all the other cs's just one type fgs.

No Lurcio its not just 'planned in advanced cause of underlying medical history' it is called voluntary ceserean where a mother with no complications, no past med hist, no obstetric need for a cs, but is allowed one anyway look it up, its scary.

"For Alexandra died as a result of severe injury to her spinal cord inflicted during a forceps delivery that went wrong - ten hours after her parents had repeatedly begged the obstetric team to deliver the baby by Caesarean."

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1253013/Forceps-killed-baby-doctors-using-them.html#ixzz0g e7sQQEb

so I answer you question Duchesse...the forceps delivery went wrong...what was the reason for baby being stuck? they dont give no background about the labor or birth or the previous health of the mother. I was deleiverd by forceps and as my mum says -yes it hurts alot - but I was not injured. and the fact they asked for a cs cause baby was stuck/wouldnt come out is a fault with the individual team...it was her choice to have cs cause of a reason, yet they didnt do one, they did not conform to her wishes...which would have saved babies life no doubt. Its not like she planned it in advance and said I dont wanna abliterate my pelvis.

Chellesgirl I had my son in the USA and I can ASSURE you that a c- section was NEVER offered as a birth "choice" . Yes the c-section rate is higher there and I would agree that they probably do C-section more there cos of the fear of litigation if something goes wrong. But to suggest its a routine option is quite frankly ridiculous! My Labor and delivery nurses were FANTASTIC and supportive and encouraging- they did not encourage me to have a c-section at the drop of a hat!

How far are you into your training cos you don't seem to have grasped the basic principles of actually CARING about a woman in labour yet?

Yeah of course these "voluntary" sections are daft - but they're also a tiny minority, as Duchesse pointed out (not least 'cos they cost about 5K if the info on another thread is accurate - in that case it was a woman so traumatised by her vaginal birth she was prepared to pay to avoid going through it again - I don't think hers would exactly be voluntary). But please stop using "elective" as a synonym for "voluntary" 'cos it's damn insulting to those of us who've had elective sections.

I asked you 2 questions that you didn't answer.

1. Is this your first term ?
2. Do you have children ?

Chelle - "what was the reason for baby being stuck? they dont give no background about the labor or birth or the previous health of the mother. I was deleiverd by forceps...".

Err, sometimes birth goes horribly wrong. In your magical pre-medical time presumably you believe a wise woman always turned the baby etc., but in reality, a sizeable percentage of women didn't live to the menopause because they'd died in childbirth. Also, as I mentioned above, this delivery was a high-cavity forceps delivery, which many obstetricians now recommend against, preferring c-sections as the latter are less risky. I was genuinely shocked when I read about this case, as I thought that an attempt to use high-cavity forceps was pretty much consigned to the dark ages by now. Low forceps deliveries are a different matter. If you are training to be a midwife, I'd have thought you should know this sort of thing.

Think I'm going to go now as Chelle is obviously not prepared to listen to anything that conflicts with her world-view.

"Hypertensive disease (previously referred to as toxemia and eclampsia, or puerperal convulsions) moved from being the third most prevalent cause of maternal deaths in the 1870s to the number one cause in the 1970s, and deaths from hemorrhage (antepartum and postpartum) moved from being the second most prevalent cause in the 1870s to the sixth most prevalent cause in the 1970s. From this article. Many cases of pre-eclampsia are now managed by early delivery, often by elective caesarian at sometimes quite low gestational ages, in a bid to save the mother. It was the knowledge gained through the 20th century that enabled medics to realise that sometimes early c s delivery beat taking your chances and caused the rise in c section to a certain extent.

I still think your focus on vanity c sections is a red herring- how many people have the money to pay for a c section? The only place I would think the concept would be widespread is in the pages of magazines like Hello and I can't believe that as a student midwife, that's where you get your information from.

ok look. i think a lot of raw nerves are being touched here and everyone's rubbing eachother up the wrong way and going in circles arguing the toss.

i can see what chelles was trying to get at originally, and correct me if i'm wrong, but its the 'too posh to push' ethos that emerged 10 or so years ago - i think posh spice might have started it - where women choose to have c-sections for no real medically binding reason. as somebody else said (sorry i can't remember who), this is a very small number of women, and to be honest, i feel sorry for them for having this frame of mind at all.

now, for the rest of us, c-sections are not something someone enters into lightly - its a last resort for many, and when its elective theres usually a damn good reason - eg tokophobia, placenta preavia etc. thank god they exist because otherwise there would be stillbirth/mother dying in childbirth statictics like the dark ages.
i know chelles is not yet a fully qualified midwife; at the moment she is just a woman with an opinion. when she is a midwife, of course she will have to adopt an unbias neutral standpoint when explaining birthing options to prospective mothers - the same way a teacher has to remain politically neutral when teaching kids. you know this chelles right?
but i for one am glad she will be in the US trying to restore the balance between natural midwife led birthing and medicalised deliveries, as this is a growing problem over there. there's a docu-film by rikki lake called 'the business of being born' (i think) which exposes this problem in america - midwives are being side-lined in favour of over-medicalised hospital bound births, that the doctors are in complete control of - i believe rikki lake's take (and that of the women she speaks to) is that the power of the their own births is gradually being taken away from women in america, and this is something that should be nipped in the bud. i guess fear of litigation and doctors desire to follow everything to the letter is behind it.
if chelles can help in some way to redress this balance over there, then i'm for it - just remember to keep an open mind girl!

of course we would all love a natural, calm, stress-free birth with hardly any need for drugs or interference, but sometimes it just doesn't work out that way, and thank god we have the safety nets in place when things do go south. (every pun intended)

ps - sorry for the essay.

alanna you understand my point completely. Thank you. ANd yes I know that I have to 'opt' for that frame of mind. and believe me if a woman said to me that she wants an el cs I couldnt astop her and its her choice. i am not going to force someone to birth naturally If they feel they cant. Though I can rest assured that mothers that come to my 'hypno' birthing birthcentre are most likely not going to be those that feel the need for a elcs - they would go to the hospital. And honestly though some people on here love to argue, I can assure you that I am indeed a loving and caring person, and I dont feel that I in my line of work when qualified will ever force someone to think different from thier views. If you give people the tools to learn they hopefully will plant the seed and it will grow. I want to teach women that medical intervention is not always necessary and that our bodies are designed to go through the whole pregnancy, labor and birth experience naturally. And as I said before the birthing centre is attached is going to be attached to the hospital where if any of my mothers or babies need medical attention then they will get it. Once again Thanks alanna

chellesgirl -

You said early on in this thread that the idea of a c-section 'scares the hell out of you.'

Fair enough, and I'm sorry you are so scared. I think a lot of people would be/are.

I think though that if you are going to be working with mothers-to-be, it might genuinely be a good idea to somehow not let your attitude be wholly influenced by your personal fear. After all, the best laid plans go astray, and I don't see how being terrifed of a C-section helps anyone.

You say that if a woman said to you that she wanted a elCS, then you 'couldn't stop her.' Well, no. But you could still make her feel scared, isolated, vulnerable, inadequate, and rejected. You don't need to 'force' anyone to 'think different from their views' to do that - you just need to approach them with a lack of compassion and be quick to judge.

I'm sure this wouldn't be your intention. But I really think it's a good idea for you, or anyone, to make sure their own fears and assumptions are addressed before they start dealing with other people in a medical context. These boards are littered with unhappy experiences from women who've had unsympathetic healthcare providers, in all sorts of ways, and I'm truly sure most of them don't realise how miserable they can make people.