Home birth

[shaky]

Hi, I am a community midwife and mother to a 2 1/2 yr old boy. The team of midwives that I work with are desperately trying to increase our home birth rate for low risk women. Do you have any ideas on how we can promote home birth? Have you had a home birth yourself or are you considering delivering your baby at home? I would love to hear your comments and suggestions please, many thanks in advance!

I'm having a homebirth. I told my midwife this the first time I saw her. However she decided to tick the hospital box on the form regardless, and told me what session to go to to familiarise myself with the labour ward. She is utterly normalising hospital birth, and making home birth something I would have to actively bring up and feel uncomfortable doing so. For me it really doesn't matter, I know what I want. But it does strike me that her attitude would make it very unlikely that someone who wasn't sure would ever bring it up. So you could not do what she's doing

Good luck opener, not long now.

DS1 had his bath in the pool a couple of times before his little sister arrived - use it as a treat, but once they're inflated they're a bit big to hide conveniently!

Here's a question for you: how far in advance do you inflate the thing? Days before EDD or after the first few contractions? DH reckons the latter.

(Sorry for thread hijack)

opener mine was inflated when I was 6cm dilated - not a conscious thing to wait until I was that far on tbh, just didn't need it before then.

Openerofjars - I suggest putting a lock on the door where your pool is so little ones can't get to it! Good luck!

OMG, shaky, you're probably one of my local midwives! I wonder if I saw you with ds?! Our local hospital is Wrexham maelor, although I didn't have him there, and don't plan to have this one there either (if I have met you this will totally out me!).

My birth with ds was pretty messy in hospital. The room did look at bit like a scene from alien! Maybe that was an exception though.

I realise I can't guarantee the pool in MLU, but we can't afford to buy one and I'm not sure where we would put it. Our kitchen in cold and dh wouldn't entertain it on the carpets. Oh and I have no blinds in kitchen/diner- I am teacher who lives next door to pupils.

I really, really love the idea of hb. Just wish it was more realistic. And birth pools were cheaper!

Raining, my birth pool was £40 from eBay. Plus £25 for a new liner. But I got mine before I knew that I could hire one from my MW. So if you want a hb with a pool ask your MW.

I had no mess at all with DS2. We just bought a a big blue tarpaulin from the local hardware shop and put old dust sheets we had from when we decorated over the taurpaulin. There was no mess at all.

Hmm, will ponder how to approach it with dh. What do you do if younger dc wake up screaming? Or if you labour during day (i did with ds)

I laboured during the day with DS2 and DS1 went out for the day with my Dad and stayed at my Mums that night.

Quite a lot of people say their older children seem to sleep through it.

My pool was from eBay too - £60. I won't need it again so will be selling it on, so it will end up costing me even less than that

I'm going for a hb this time round and my MW is super super supportive! After a rubbish delivery for my first I just want to be in my own environment where I'm not being timed, checked every hour or generally 'rushed'. Its no further for a transfer from where I live to the main hospital than if I was in the midwive led unit. From what I've read (and certainly from what others mothers have told me) there is lower incidence of intervention if you go for a hb. I do think, though, there needs to be proper preparation on the part of the mother esp first-timers. I also think its very important that a woman has the opportunity to give birth where she wants and opposition from partners/husbands etc needs to be carefully managed. This is where I see the role of the MW as being essential if hb is to be promoted. Any opportunity for women to talk to those with experience of hb is really useful.

There was very little mess at my homebirth. I gave birth in the bathroom, in the end, so very easily cleaned up, and we bought some cheap dust sheets for around the pool in the living room (carpets would have been safe!). The midwives here bring inco pads with them and cleared everything up before they left.

Round here, homebirth does mean continuity of care if you're with one of the teams of community midwives who we are lucky enough to have. They see you in your home through your pregnancy and will be with you for your birth at home OR in hospital. Other women get to meet specific homebirth teams during their pregnancies but aren't seen by them for routine antenatal care.

My midwife group really is at the cutting edge of midwifery service provision and I aware of how incredibly lucky I was to have them. There's an old Guardian article about them here:

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/may/18/health.medicineandhealth1?mobile-redirect=false

Why can't you just cover the carpets with something? You're not going to be bleeding heavily throughout, it's just the end bit that's messy so you'll be in one place. If you're on a mat the midwife can just chuck it out when you're done.

TBH, if you want a hospital birth, go to hospital, but if you want a home birth then don't opt out because of a bit of mess, there are far more important things. (Apart from safety) It's your comfort that matters, and I'm sure your DH cares far more about you than he does about the carpets.

I really hope my posts haven't come across as to pushy.

I do have a question about home birth that might be silly. Can I give birth upstairs, in my own bed (with coverings!). DH brought it up today, it's clearly being going round in his head, for a few reasons.

My concern is that there is not a lot of room up there, and also if I did need to be transfered, what if I couldn't walk down the stairs?

WantAnOrange You can give birth wherever you like - in your bed, on the sofa, in the bath, at the end of the garden...that's the beauty of planning a homebirth

I just had this horrible image of being stuck at the top of the stairs, with the ambulance waiting......

paramedics could carry you of course, if you really couldn't walk down under your own steam...

the intervention rates for women giving birth at home are significantly lower -

11% c/s hospital versus 2.8% at home
8% forceps hospital versus 2.3% at home
(birthplace study: large study of 60000 low risk women)

Buntycollocks - don't worry I don't know who you are, you have not been outed!

Also I have never done a hb upstairs on a bed, in my experience women find it easier to mobilise downstairs. Honestly the mess is minimal and we clear up before we leave!

Those statistics are very interesting, I might have them on hand when I tell my dad I'm planning a Home Birth.

Inspired by this thread, I have told mw this morning that I want a hb and am going to info evening on weds. I am watching some birth pools on eBay. Just need to convince dh...

Raining that's great . I've been told by my doula that the home birth sessions at hospitals can be good for convincing partners as they talk about the benefits backed up with all the evidence. Of course it might depend on which hospital, and I don't know first hand.

Yorky - i have a friend who also had very quick births - she's had 5 HBs now, and each one there was no chance she'd have got to to the hospital in time (hers have all gone from "fine, muddling along" to "oh god there's the baby!" very quickly)
Her last one wasn't even seen by the MW (and was breech)

Talking of breech, I would like to see a switch away from "breech by CS or at the very least under consultant care" to "breech is perfectly normal providing the lie is correct" - there are an awful lot of breech presentations that can very safely be delivered vaginally, and a proportion of those could also be delivered safely at home.
the reason it doesn't happen is because of the massive switch to consultant-led care for breech presentation - it means that MWs (even in the hospitals) have no experience of breech births, and therefore can't do them (or won't dare)
MWs need to watch/supervise/be in charge of breech births delivered vaginally as a matter of course - you wouldn't allow any other area of midwifery to lapse in this way! And to be capable of delivering one no matter where it might be.

The MW of my friend, said that she's seen so few that she had a breech at a home birth (it wasn't discovered until the last minute when the MW went in to check for lie), and the woman had to be transferred into hospital - purely because the MW didn't know how to deal with it The woman was at no other risk, and the baby was born vaginally with minimal pain relief.

My friend's breech was delivered before the MW even got there, and the MW said that had she arrived before the baby, she would have pushed for a transfer.

oh, yes, continuity of care.
You are less likely to know your MW at birth - mainly because hospitals are so big - at a hospital birth than a HB.
Certainly, in my area, my town has a small community hospital, and the MWs belong to the big hospital but work out of the community hospital. It means that you're much more likely to have the same MW through pregnancy and birth.