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Hi, I'm new too! Any home birth advice?

14 replies

SafferUpNorth · 17/12/2008 17:45

Hi E'burgh ladies,

I've just joined the Mumsnet boards - a new experience for me as I'm usually a lurker!

I'm 11 weeks pregnant with my first and live in North Edinburgh.

I have not met the midwife yet it's three weeks now since my GP said she'd be in touch - the system seems to be ticking awful slowly for me!!!). But in the meantime, I was wondering whether any of you have had a home birth here in Edinburgh? Any thoughts/advice gratefully received!

OP posts:
LadySweet · 21/12/2008 16:14

Hello Saffer, iirc you wont meet your midwife until around 15/16 weeks, I think that was when I met mine (I remember it was after my 12 week scan anyway)

Have no advice to give re. home birth though sorry, had my boy at ERI.

liath · 22/12/2008 11:11

hi there, I had my second baby at home (south Edinburgh) and it was a great experience with very supportive midwives. I didn't get my scan & 1st midwife appointment until a week or so before the date (a bit last minute IMHO but there you go).

Howdie · 26/12/2008 23:17

Hi Safferupnorth

Congratulations on your pregnancy and well done for considering homebirth.

The timescale during which you first meet your midwife very much depends on which community team you are with. eg, the East Lothian team do a pre-booking with their ladies whenever they first make contact with their GP surgery, ie any time between 6-10 weeks. Your first scan should be offered between 10-14 weeks (sometimes later as it is VERY busy in Lothian at the moment) and some teams do a booking on the same day as the scan, other teams it is later.

I'm just outside Edinburgh and had my third baby at home nearly two years ago and would THOROUGHLLY recommend it. You'll get loads more info on Angela Horn's homebirth website www.homebirth.org.uk

I help run a support group for pregnant women in Portobello if you're interested. Have a look here for more info

www.choicesforchildbirth.co.uk

SafferUpNorth · 05/01/2009 13:16

Hi again,

Thanks to those who've replied to my message with supportive words on home birth.

Just back from holiday and was pleased to find an envelope from the Pennywell community midwife team in my pile of mail. The scan is scheduled this Thursday at RIE... though living in Wardie/Trinity, I would have hoped and expected to be referred to Leith Treatment Centre, which is nearby!!!

Anyway, very glad it's all lined up. I look forward to meeting the Pennywell midwifery team next week at my booking appt and sincerely hope they'll support my choice to have a home birth!

Howdie, you might have some word of mouth info on support for home birth in North Edinburgh, Pennywell team in particular? And thanks for invite to your support group.

OP posts:
BabyBloomer · 06/03/2009 17:18

I had a fantastic home birth with very supportive midwives in East Edinburgh two years ago. Very relaxed and I have really happy memories. Planning my second at the moment. if you have any specific questions I am happy to help out if I can.

CaroDon · 20/04/2009 16:48

hi,

I had a really fantastic homebirth experience with the Stewart Team, (first baby) it was everything I could have hoped for and they were extremely supportive, assuring, and generally brilliant. I think a lot can come down to who your appointed midwive & team is on booking in though. I am new, and don't want to break the rules on here, but I had my booking in with another team in the city, as we lived elsewhere in Edinburgh then. I had a really negative experience with this that really upset me and one of the reasons we moved was the experience i had with my midwife team and their negativity to homebirth. When we moved to the Stewart Team area, and i arranged the homebirth with them, I cried with joy at how positive they were.

I had such a brilliant experience as a firt time mum of homebirth, I really hope you do too xxx

rookiemater · 20/04/2009 22:07

Hi, one of the ladies on my NCT classes had a homebirth and it all worked out very well for her, along with amusing descriptions of filling and emptying their hired birthing pool.

I'd recommend that you either join NCT and/or attend the pre birth classes as if nothing else you meet a nice bunch of parents to be who are on the same wave length.

Good luck and welcome to mumsnet, which actually is all you really need as a parent

LittleDoe · 01/05/2009 21:27

CaroDon - really pleased to hear that you had a positive HB experience with the Stewart team as I am planning one with them too. I'm 29 weeks at the moment (due 14 July) and have not actually officially "booked" the HB yet, although I did chat to them about it at my 28 week appointment and I was pleased that they were so positive. I know they have to come out to the house to do an assessment so I will try to organise that next week as time is ticking on. Have been delaying slightly on that TBH as we currently have a building site for a kitchen - DH is fitting our new kitchen himself so it's taking a while, bless . Do you think the midwives will think negatively about the lack of kitchen whilst they visit? Clearly I hope it will all be finished well in advance of July!!

Any other Edinburgh HB tips or stories I'd be really interested in hearing about (especially those with Stewart team)....

Bellebelle · 18/05/2009 09:54

Hi,

I had a Homebirth with the Leith Team last September for DD2 and they were fantastic. From what I've heard the majority of midwives in Edinburgh and the Lothians are very supportive of HB and will do everything they can to help.

The Pregnancy and Parents Centre (previously Birth Resource Centre) in Polworth have a drop in Home Birth Support Group on the first Sunday of every month which is well worth a visit (pregnancyandparents.org.uk).

Littledoe - really wouldn't worry about the kitchen, so long as you have running water and don't live in a cave the midwives will be fine! I did what every prospective homebirther does and scrubbed my house from top to bottom but when the midwife did her home visit she barely looked around, only came into our bedroom on my request for some advice on where to put stuff.

Very happy for anyone to get in touch for more info.

Metatron · 18/05/2009 09:59

The north edinburgh team are very pro home birth. I went to the Leith treatment centre when I lived in trinity.

I would do the nct thing though, there was no one nice on my NHS classes.

Bellebelle · 18/05/2009 12:03

Oh yes, definitely do the NCT thing, much better for meeting people than the NHS ones, I still see 4 of the girls from our group every couple of weeks and we're all on our 2nd/3rd babies. Get your name down really early as the classes are in huge demand in Edinburgh. You may find that you don't necessarily get put in a group with people in your exact area (we were spread all over Edinburgh and the Lothians) but we didn't really find it to be a barrier to meeting up once the babies were born. We used to just take it in turns to give those who couldn't drive a lift to where ever we were meeting.

I wouldn't say that you necessarily get much more info from NCT classes than you will from Midwives and reading but they are good for involving partners and making friends.

LittleDoe · 18/05/2009 21:35

Thanks for the tips Bellebelle - I've heard about the homebirth support group at the Pregnancy and Parents Centre so intend to go along to the next one. We're also going to NCT classes which are going well although I'm the only one who is considering a HB. Even the teacher/class leader doesn't seem to be particulary pro-HB which surprised me a little I must admit. She didn't say anything negative when I mentioned it but wasn't exactly gushing either.

Anyway, a couple more homebirth related questions (if I may)....:

  • Firstly, I'm now approaching 32 weeks and the midwives still haven't "booked" the HB for me yet - is this normal? Last time I called them (maybe 2 weeks ago) they said it was still too early to assess whether I low risk enough for an HB (have had zero problems in my pregnancy to date). Surely we need to get stuff sorted out quite soon? I can just tell that in a couple more weeks they'll be telling me that I've left it too late!
  • Secondly, did you get cold feet at all at any stage about homebirthing? I'm going through a nervous stage at the moment where I'm wondering if we're doing the right thing. My biggest concern is the baby not breathing once it's born or developing complications that doctors in the hospital could treat but that midwives at home could not. I'm assuming these are normal "fears" - but how did you reassure yourself about these or similar thoughts?

TIA.

Metatron · 18/05/2009 22:40

LittleDOe - put your foot down now and get the homebirth booked. Point out that it can always become a hospital birth so no reason not to book it. If they are a PITA get on to the head of midwives and get her to sort it out.

I didn't get cold feet about homebirthing but my midwife pointed out that I could be transfered in to hospital as fast as it would be to get me from the labour ward to surgery .

Bellebelle · 19/05/2009 20:26

32 weeks might feel a little late but I think it's quite normal for midwives to leave it quite late as they can't actually put you 'on call' until you're 38 wks, if you went into labour before then you would need to go to hospital. My midwife came round to go through all the paperwork at 33 wks, she then arranged for a box of medical equipment and the oxygen and gas & air to be delivered on the day before I would be 38 wks, once it was delivered a midwife came out to check everything was there and that the gases worked.

I would be pushing them to let you know when they plan on booking you for the HB though just so you know where you stand.

Regards your NCT lady not being overly enthusiastic about your planned homebirth I think unfortunately it is very common for people to not like the idea but they usually don't know enough about HB and just 'don't like the sound of it'. No one challenged me on my decision to
have a HB although afterwards quite a few people told
me that they had been worried about my choice, I'm glad
that they all respected my decision enough to let me get
on with it though rather than trying to put me off.

I will be brutally honest with you though and say that your NCT lady might be thinking about you being a first timer. This is by no means meant to put you off in any way but approx. 50% of first timers are transferred to hospital and also it is very, very difficult to know how you will cope
with the pain if you haven't been through it before and
your options for pain relief are slightly less at home. On
the flipside though you can look at it that even if you do
get transferred at least you will have been able to spend
a large part of your labour in your home and if you end
up needing an epidural transferring to hospital may take
the same time as it would take an anaethnatist to get to
you if you were already there.

I didn't really get cold feet either but my husband wasn't as keen as me so needed a bit of time to come round to the idea. I also needed to be certain in my mind that if something were to go wrong that I wouldn't spend the rest of my days blaming myself. We dealt with this by reading as much about HB as we could including stories of cases where there had been an unhappy outcome. I also spoke to my midwife about her experiences and also 'worst case scenario'. I got her to talk me through what would happen if the baby wasn't breathing or if I haemorraged and was assured that the midwives have the same equipment available to them at home as they would in hospital. I had also had a pretty poor experience at the ERI with DD1 so felt that any tiny risk of something going wrong was outweighed by the benefits of not going through another hospital birth. To be honest I'm also quite a laid back person with a 'things will work out' attitude which probably helped (I'm not necessarily saying this is a good thing for everything though, bit laid back for my own good sometimes!).

The most important thing is that you feel comfortable with your choices, there's no point in having a HB if you feel anxious the whole time that something might go wrong. Also be prepared that you may have to be transferred to hospital or that you may even go into labour and then decide that you don't want to be at home but if that does happen don't be beating yourself up that you didn't 'manage' your homebirth. You really don't know how you will react to labour until you're in it, I was convinced that I would want DH to massage my back during labour but actually couldn't bare to be touched and sent him to sit in the corner, a friend who has to be half dead to take an asprin ended up taking every pain relief option available to her, another who wanted a pool got straight back out again as soon as she stepped in it...expect the unexpected is what I'm trying to say!

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