Experience of medical management at home Vs in hospital

[Prettyflowersallyear]

Hello all, looking to see if anyone has experience of medical management at home Vs in hospital please. I’ve had a MMC with baby measuring 10+5. I would like surgery but am too scared to go down that route so looking at medical management options. My hospital only offers medical management at home but lots of other local hospitals insist you are an inpatient if over 9/10 weeks gestation. Does anyone have experience you’d be able to share please? Just not sure why my hospital seems to be different and I’m considering going to a different hospital. Thanks.

Hi there,

sorry to hear you are going through this. I had medical management at 16 weeks and had to stay in the hospital. I have to say the care was second to none, the nurses were so compassionate and I was very well looked after. Although it was such a traumatic experience the nurses looking after me made it more bearable( not sure that’s the right word) but they really helped. I also had medical management at home another time, I have to say I much preferred being an in patient. Sending much love

I’m so sorry you’re going through this.

Do whatever you feel is best for you in this situation, and don’t feel bad about advocating for the care you need right now.

Please don't be scared of surgery. It's painless and if I'm honest saved me mentally from not having to deliver. I'm so sorry for your loss. If you have any surgery questions please feel free to ask, I have had 2 D&C's.

@Panda8383 thank you for taking time to respond and I’m very sorry for your losses. I’ve also had medical management at home and think I would feel better being in a hospital with the nurses on hand.

@ReetPetity thank you - this is really helpful advice and I’ve spoken to my hospital now and they are going to try to refer me to somewhere that could have me as an in patient. So difficult to have to deal with all the bureaucracy at a time like this but they were very understanding.

@tempnameforadvice thank you for your offer of advice, if I go down the surgery route I will definitely reach out thank you. I wish I was brave enough to just go for the surgery as I know it would be quicker. So sorry for your losses too - such a hard thing to have to go through.

x

@Panda8383 do you mind me asking if you had a separate room in hospital, or were you on a ward with others? Thanks.

May I ask what worries you have about surgery? It's of course your call, I am just being nosey I guess.

Hi, it’s not really a rational fear so difficult to explain - rationally I would probably advise myself to go for surgery, but I just panic at the thought of it (was down for surgery for my last MMC and ended up cancelling it just before I was due to go in).

I’m so sorry about your miscarriage.
I had medical management at home a few months ago. I’ll be honest, the pain was horrendous. I was giving strong painkillers but they didn’t do anything.
During the miscarriage, I said I wouldn’t go down the medical route again. But now I’m not so sure, I probably would do it again.
Yes the pain was very intense, but didn’t last too long. And I had no issues after such as retained product.

Sorry I just re-read and have seen you had medical at home before. I don’t have experience of being in hospital for it. I preferred the idea of being at home, but can totally see how a hospital is a better route for others

@Figtree11 thanks for replying and I’m very sorry for your loss. I managed to get a referral to have the medical management as an in patient; I’ll see how it compares to being at home X

Just updating this in case people are reading in the future to help make decisions (TW some graphic bits):

So my hospital were very helpful in referring me to another hospital that could have me as an in patient for medical management at my gestation. The medical management did not work well for me this time though - I thought it was working as intended but I was actually losing too much blood and then passed out twice. The doctor examined me three times to check there were no blockages causing the bleeding, which there weren’t. I was put
on a drip. In the end, the only way to stop the bleeding was to quickly go for surgery and I also needed a blood transfusion. A really difficult 36 hours altogether but I’m glad that I was in hospital and being monitored - otherwise my partner and I would have been at home trying to work out what was going on and would have needed to call an ambulance and go through a&e (which I think would have been much more difficult to cope with on top of everything else). The surgery seemed to go well so hopefully on the road to physical recovery at least now. In hindsight, I would just have done the surgery to start with.

I'm really glad you got the hospital management that you wanted - and obviously needed, from how it panned out. I hope you're doing OK and wish you all the best for a speedy recovery💐

Medical management at home meant I could drink wine and that helped.

Edit: and I should have read your post first! Mine were uneventful. My second medical management failed initially and I needed another dose of pills but they worked. I didn’t have excessive bleeding with any medical management (for 3 miscarriages) but I did with my first miscarriage, which was a watch and wait.