Mum-to-be with breech baby is shunning hospital for home water birth

[TheHerald]

A mum-to-be who has been advised to have a C-section because her baby is breech is instead raising £2,000 for a private delivery at home in a birthing pool. www.plymouthherald.co.uk/Plymouth-mum-determined-breech-baby-boy-home/story-25901543-detail/story.html

I would probably have wanted to try and deliver DS naturally if he had been breech at the time (PFB), I had a (partial!) home birth with him. He flipped back to back and slightly transverse towards the end of the labour, we were transferred in and sent to theatre for a rotational forceps and nearly a c section. I would consider a home birth again if all was well, that part of his birth was so calm and I had a really bad experience on the postnatal ward. BUT if I had to deliver a baby coming out the wrong way again then I would be straight down the hospital shouting for an epidural.

A little dismayed people want to live in a country where how a woman delivers her baby is decided by the authorities. How could this possibly be made against the law? Would policemen have to handcuff labouring women and take them to the hospital? Hold them down for their C-section? I think I would emigrate.

Ali- the maternal mortality rate is still higher for non medical elcs than vaginal births.

C sections are usually done for the baby's benefit not the mothers.

DD was breech, I wanted to try vaginal delivery. Consultant s had no problem whatsoever, but I did go to the obstetric unit. Wound up with EMCS as her head got stuck but there was minimal drama. Agree that experienced staff are key, but she can choose to birth wherever she wish's.

Do agree with others about the fetishisation of birth experiences though.

So true about the 'we have fairy lights and pictures to calm us' attitude . Fair enough when things are low risk. I have been to lots of home births and totally support them but when they become unsafe I find it extremely hard! The trouble is say a woman has a 'high risk' home birth, we have supervisors of midwives there is a plan etc, and when it pulls off and everything is ok (the midwife hasn't had a heart attack and everyone is alive), the woman shouts it from the roof tops 'see I told you so'! The ones that go desperately and sadly wrong aren't.... They are dragged through investigation after investigation. Every detail scrutinised. The parents will never forgive themselves and the midwife may never work again due to complete lack of confidence and emotional burnout. I have seen it. It is so not worth the fairy lights.....

Aaaaand it gets better: The article gives the name of her preferred midwife as one Jane Evans, but on her fundraiser page she says the other midwife she will hire is Julia Duthie.

www.indiegogo.com/projects/home-birth-for-a-breech-baby

The same Julia Duthie as the one reference in THIS article, by any chance??

www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Midwife-faces-new-hearing-Exeter-baby-s-death/story-20072039-detail/story.html

I think that having a breech homebirth would be far to much of a risk for me personally. However there were a lot of breech births at home in the past. The problem is finding midwives with suitable skills. I expect that an 80 year old retired midwife would be less shocked by the idea of a breech homebirth.

My own mother worked as a midwife in a public hospital in Zambia for a year in the 1950s. There were only 2 c sections in that year and they only lost one mother during childbirth. She wrote an article for the midwives chronical. I don't know how many babies died or were stillborn.

I don't think that the woman in the story deserves social services. It is shocking the nhs cannot provide her with care. I don't know if she was offered a breech delivery in a midwifery led unit next to a consultant led unit.

I have read the article and I think the hospital have tried to be reasonable. Her insistence on wanting three birth partners and to film the birth is not realistic.

It says on their fundraising page that the mother has a bicornate uterus. This can affect the contractions during labour. She really needs hospital monitoring and to come to terms with needing a section.

Mmm, she doesn't need an independent midwife. She can insist on nhs midwives attending her. They will all have done breech skills training and I'm sure if the woman said she wanted nhs midwives the community midwives would do extra training/drills to prepare.

I've known women have planned breech home births inc pool births and they've all had nhs midwives.

I'd come to terms with a c-section. But then I'm a former breech baby with a slight but v definite twist the full length of my spine, and a lop sided smile prob caused by nerve damage from being born not breathing with the cord around my neck. It was my chiropractor who noticed the spine thing, he said straight out, well you were breech weren't you? So it must be a common enough result of being delivered that way! The scary thing is that proponents of vaginally breech delivery would at the time have regarded the birth as one of the successful ones, esp as I was the second of twins, but I don't think any birth choice should leave lifelong marks on a child.

If she has done her research and feels happy with her descion, then good on her. I wish them the best of luck.

Its such a non story. We are so used to being told what to do when it comes to pregnancy and birth that we are afraid to make our own choices. Questions like am I allowed, is it legal represent thus.

Having said that, I had a hb with dd3 and wanted one with ds no4 but I had gestational diabeties so decided to play it safe and go to hospital. It would have been fine at home but hindsight is a great thing.

But it's not just about her body, it's about the safety of the baby too. My DD1 was breech presentation and I was advised to have CS. She didn't turn and no one seemed to want to try and make her turn (lack of experience?) and I was happy to follow medical advice. CS definitely not an easy option!

Just seen crazyqueen's post - my breech (but CS delivery) DD1 has spinal scoliosis (mild thankfully) - I had never heard that connection made before. Maybe it wasn't the delivery, but the breech position during pregnancy?

Oh, hiddenhome - and I was a bicornuate uterus too and now I remember them saying that it meant breech more likely as baby struggles to turn.

As far as Im concerned, a baby is part of the mother until its born. Im daying i agree with her btw.

Brings this case to mind.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1459955/Home-birth-baby-died-after-mother-told-midwives-not-to-interfere.html

Hope outcome is better.

Is there indication that the mother is going to refuse intervention from the mw? This lady didn't even know she was carrying twins so had clearly refused scans. Therefore she also didn't know where her placenta was let alone the actual position of baby.

The point in this case is that the lady involved wants someone there with proper experience to lower the risk.

If I Google I can probably find an example of a death after cs too.

Knowing someone who was pregnant only once and her baby was born sleeping because of the difficulty of a delivery in this position, I would never do it.

The birth is a very short time in your life compared to a lifetime of sadness.

I wanted vaginal births because they are safer for mum and baby

I disagree biggest payout from maternity is for botched vag births and life time care for damaged babies.

However its her choice seems masochistic but her choice..

Yes indeed Eugene

Good luck to her. I've read the crowdfunder. She's done research.

She should have been able to feel supported by NHS wherever and however she decided to birth. That's the tragedy.

Interesting that this link, from the Portsmouth Herald, was, as a P&P pointed out, posted by an OP called TheHerald. I smell a rat.

I think it's really dismissive to assume that women want vaginal births out of some kind of romanticised idea of 'blissful birth'. I wanted vaginal births because they are safer for mum and baby.

But in this situation a vaginal birth is categorically not the safer option. This woman wants to give birth vaginally 'because its the most amazing thing a woman can do' She is putting her desire for 'a blissful birth' ahead of the safety of her baby.

Absolutely her choice, but I judge her