Home birthed children grow up to be especially sunny, relaxed and happy children

[Bumperlicious]

Do you think?

I think it's sounds ridiculous, another way to make people feel guily. If you have drugs you are a failure, if you don't want to have a baby in your bed and then clear up all the mess afterwards you are odd.

Home births are not for everyone. I'm sick of being told I should want one! I'm at home every day maybe I want a trip to hospital where everything will be spotless and Doctors are close by. So now I should feel bad that my baby won't be as relaxed and happy as they could have been? Well personally I need to be happy to and home birth is certainly not the way to make that happen.

happy too

'I do think easy birth = happyier baby though. '

Nah. DD1 was my hardest birth - 24 hour labour, forceps, postpartum infection, PND, teh lot.

She was the happiest baby going.

We were in hospital nearly a week after she was born, and she had to go to SCBU because there was no well baby nursery there and I was ill afterwards.

The midwives all loved her, she was so good-natured from the get go.

DD2 was an easy, drug free birth. She was a mardy bum from the get go.

my first dd was an instrumental birth that went wrong and I had a c section - so not really an easy birth. dd1 was a dream baby and slept from 6pm-6am and then napped till 9 am after a feed. A very placid baby and easy going child, really not a reflection on her intrusive instrumental theater apperance birth... thankfully.

What a load of bollocks.

I adore my children and ds34 was HB and is a very special child who lights up my world

Buut relaxed and sunny he ain't (happy he is as long as he is with me Dh or the CM, nobody else will do)

He's shy and one of natures homebodies.

DS4

Tsk

Being in hospital gave me a happy birth-I could relax knowing that all the facilities were there. I agree with strictlykatty.

piscesmoon and StrictlyKatty,

No one is forced to have a homebirth. The best way to have good quality care is to offer the mother a range of options and the education and support to decide what is best for her at the time.

To have happpy birth experience a woman needs to be making the decisions. Ie. not to be denied an epidural because some hippy thinks its wrong. Conversely consultant led care is not appriopiate for every mother.

Homebirth is right option for some families, but not for others. In the right situation it can be the safest option. It all depends on your obstetic history.

I am glad that piscesmoon had a good birth experience.

Absolutely RT

I ahve had 3 in hospital, 1 at homje.

As it happens the one who is happiest is the more disabled one (not birth injury). Theone with the relaxed hospital birth is a complete whinger, and ds4 (rapid birth at home 35 mins) is shy and home loving.

babies are what they, barring extreme circs a birth experience won't change that.

I am quite happy for people to have home births-I just object to them thinking it is right for all, or somehow a better experience-it is merely a better experience for them.

I would agree with that PM.

I think there does need to a lot of noiose about the option to HB becuase so manya re refused as a matter of course (I was and in fact a hospital delviery was impossible, i woudl never have made it)- I needed to be aware of my rights to fight blanket no.

But there is no rights or wrongs in birthing. Silence, noise, drugs, pain, standing, in stirrups.... who cares as long as mum is OK and baby safe

My 8 month old ds was an accidental homebirth and he is a really easy going relaxed happy baby. DD was traumatic hospital birth and had colic, now she's a happy and v reasonable 3 yr old, I think birth experience does count but obviously how you approach bringing baby up impacts too, otherwise most of us would be miserable, cause birthing is rarely smooth.

Bumper - you possibly haven't taken all that much interest before now but there are loads and loads of really sparky interesting threads on stats. re. homebirth vs hospital on Mumsnet which would make for shocking fascinating reading if you had a little look. See what Mumsnetters have to say before you decide.

(I'm sure you will).

I'm sure lots of mothers of hb babies do think their kids are lovely sunny happy children.

I'm also sure about the same proportion of other mothers also think their kids are sunny, happy, etc. 'Many... think...' is a totally meaningless phrase.

(parent of sunny happy hospital-extracted baby...)

I'm a right miserable bitch. Shall I blame the emergency CS I was born by?

I wanted a home birth first time round, but ended up begging to be taken to hospital and given as many drugs as possible. Resultant DS1 is pretty sunny most of the time, conveniently forgetting about the mental tantrums he likes to throw at least once a day (he is 2.5).

Tried again for DS2, and it was a much quicker birth (5 hours) so I did indeed have him at home. I tried again largely as I hated having to stay in hospital after the birth of DS1, it felt so odd for my husband not to be able to stay with us, and I was worried about being away from DS1. Also I was convinced that DS1 was a pretty screamy baby because he was delivered by ventouse.

It felt lovely being at home. But my theory about the ventouse turned out to be bollocks.

I understand what you say about the fear of things going wrong. I felt nervous, but had excellent midwives who were very reassuring in a totally unpressured way. They said that if at any time I felt like I wasn't in the right place being at home they would get me straight to hospital. Also I only live about 10 mins walk from the hospital. And those factors mitigated the risk for me.

Irony is that me and DS2 have now had two 4 day stays in hospital in the 4 months since he was born, 1st time for a random virus at 4 weeks, 2nd time a few weeks ago for pneumonia and bronchialitis.

So homebirthed children are definitely not healthier! As for personality, he's pretty sunny so far but I think that's more because he has a very demanding brother and he's so bloody grateful for any attention that he beams whenever anyone looks at him!

Good luck whatever you decide.

Why is the expression "home birthed" so annoying? Or is it just me?

zookeeper does it make you think of women in aprons taking babies out of the oven? A bit like "homebaked"?

I don't know; I can't put my finger on it but it sets my teeth on edge. What's wrong with saying babies born at home? Seems ludicrously pretentious somehow

(wanders off muttering darkly)

Thanks Bibbity, I will make sure I look. Like I say this is my first serious foray into research on it. I'm only 14 weeks so no hurry.

TBH I had always disregarded it, but was surprised at how keen the midwife was (apparently this is because my maternity unit is regularly full, it was when I gave birth to DD so had to give birth in antenatal). Anyway, she made a good point about preparing for a home birth in case it all goes too quickly.

Just to clarify I really don't believe the statement in the title, I was rather at it and was making a point really.

Annoys me too..just one of many expressions that does and I don't think it makes a blind bit off difference where you were born

What a load of nonsense. My eldest brother was a hospital birth, but my mum's other 3 kids were HB. I don't think any of us were 'relaxed, sunny and happy' as kids!

My DD was supposed to be a HB but we ended up transferring into hospital after several hours of labour. She's a very sunny, relaxed and happy child- does that prove or disprove the 'theory'?