Home birth

[ZebraMammy17]

I've been binge watching call the midwife since times have changed it seems so odd to have a home birth but the more I think about it it does have some appeal being in your own bedroom. Since me and DH are trying to conceive baby2 it would be nice to see everyone's experience with home births pros and cons

I gave birth 6 months ago at MLU and I had a really smooth labour and birth with a perfect healthy baby boy at the end of it. I had such a peace of mind that if anything was to go wrong I was surrounded by medical professionals. Personally I wouldn't even think of a homebirth for one second as i would just feel happier knowing that myself or baby would be helped within seconds if anything happened but Do whatever makes you feel most comfortable and do lots of research! Good luck with everythingx

I think it’s also worth adding that there are stand alone MLU which are not attached to a hospital - we don’t have one at all where I am but I have read other posts about them.
Therefore if you chose to give birth in a MLU you are still exposed to some of these “ultra emergency” situations which require immediate surgery and will need transfer. However overall people (women) seem to be very pro MLU and they don’t attract the attitude of it putting your baby at risk.

The Birthplace study was prospective (i.e. it looked at outcomes for women who planned a home birth even if they ended up not having one). It did not show that home birth was safer than hospital birth for multiparous women so I’m still unsure where the NCT is getting this from (less chance of intervention is great but is not the same as safer!).

@Grumpos valid point about MLUs - I don’t know that there’s any evidence as yet that stand alone MLUs are higher risk than those attached to a consultant-led unit (and the likelihood of intervention is probably lower) but as a first time mum with a December due date and a roughly 40-60% chance of needing transfer I prefer the idea of a trolley ride down a corridor to an ambulance journey in the cold mid-labour so have opted for the latter!

@Grumpos the MLU I went to was attached to the hospital so emergency help was literally down the corridor... there is no way I would of chosen it had it not been attached to a main hospital!xx

I had a home birth-unplanned. I went to the hospital which is 20 mins away was told it's probably going to take away and basically go home in the snow without any examinations. So I did and within 8 mins of arriving home my baby was born. I had group b strep so should have been examined kept in and hooked up to antibiotics. None of that happened. Luckily my baby is fine but I'm now expecting my 2nd and seriously considering home birth maybe this time not with the big light on and my bare bottom facing the window....ew! I am interested in both points people have on here I am skeptic but I think iv done it once I can do it again just with a more relaxed atmosphere

Thanks for the link to the birthplace study. My reading of it is that a home birth is as safe as any other setting for the baby for second or later births. It also has a lower chance of interventions in that situation, my understanding is that that is likely to result in better outcomes for the woman, less tearing etc. So overall for the combined mother and baby pair I see a benefit.
For women having their first birth the outcomes are slightly worse for baby and a very significant proportion of them are transferred anyway - more than a third, compared to less than one in ten for subsequent births.
I think this is helping cement my decision.
I will ignore that people claiming that I’m endangering my baby for the sake of being ‘cosy’ at home, I’m doing my best to interpret the evidence out there and follow the guidance of the medical professions involved to achieve the best possible outcome - healthy baby and healthy mother at the end of it.

The day you’re born is the most dangerous day in your life. Why would you not choose to be in a building filled with highly skilled medical personnel and equipment on that day???

I think we’ve been persuaded to believe that birth is this sanitised, spiritual ‘experience’, when in actuality it’s the one thing remaining in our lives that tethers us to our animal past. It’s a brutal, dangerous process, and medicine and science have been able to largely mitigate that. Why would you not take advantage of it? I really don’t get home birthing at all. Look at maternal and infant mortality rates in countries where women have no choice other than to labour at home. It’s not a coincidence.

@ResurrectedGoldfish I think we have been convinced that birth needs to be a medical process with lots of interventions. And whilst those interventions are important and necessary in some births, because, yes maternal death is a huge risk. It is not necessary for all births to be completely medicalised. Some bodies can cope perfectly well with the experience.

The US hugely medicalises births and has a massive C section rate. This is also not a coincidence. Medical intervention should be available to all, but it is not necessary for every birth.

I had all of mine at home with no complications all 5 of them and will be doing the same with this one.

It's very low risk if you are a low risk pregnancy, lower risk than hospital last time I looked.

Best decision I ever made.
Totally unnecessary hospital birth with my first, perfect home birth with my second.
I will never choose to birth in hospital again unless my life or baby’s life is in immediate danger.
Community midwives have extra training to contain an emergency should one arise, and carry equipment for resuscitation, to control a haemorrhage etc.
For uncomplicated, second/subsequent pregnancies, home birth is statistically as safe as hospital birth.
My home birth was exactly the experience I believe childbirth should be ie. completely on my terms, in an environment where I’m comfortable. I asked the midwife to be totally hands off and only intervene in an emergency or if I asked for her help. She was totally happy with that and just let me and DH get on with it. As I pushed, she guided dh’s Hands to catch DS. I made it clear in my birth preferences that no one was to touch him or take him from me unless in a medical emergency. Cord wasn’t cut until after the placenta was delivered. DS wasn’t weighed or dressed until he was a few hours old.
It was wonderful

@LemonBreeland there is definitely an element of truth to what you’re saying, and I have to say, I think a lot of the published research about home v. hospital birth is flawed (on both sides of the argument). However, it’s like that old saying - rattlesnakes are harmless unless they bite. 99.9% of the time home births are straightforward and go without hiccup, it’s when they don’t that they can be disasterous. The most skilled midwife in the world can’t replicate an NICU or surgical theatre and in those situations, rare as they are, seconds count. But I’m more than aware that complications can and do arise as a result of hospital birth. I suppose what I’m saying to the OP is that it hasn’t been my choice and these are the reasons why in the hope of being helpful x

The SkepticalOB has some really interesting stuff about home birth, though not without bias itself, that makes really interesting reading. It’s also largely focused on Australia and the US where midwifery is much less regulated and just about anyone can set themselves up as a midwife and peddle whatever quackery they like without any qualifications at all. But underneath all that, it does make sense. Also, I’m not sure how much of an argument it is to say anecdotally “I had x many babies at home and it was brilliant”, I could just as easily say I had 2 in hospital (due a third in September!) and we’re all alive and healthy. It doesn’t prove anything because there’s no way of showing whether our experiences are typical of he population or even a result of where the babies were born.

You're right resurrected but OP can look up the stats and research herself just like any of us. What I understood from the question was that she was specifically after hearing about personal experiences, which is why women have given them.

Yes, but she was also asking for pros and cons, which is why I’ve given them.

Also, as I said, a lot of the research is flawed and is either representing a vested interest, or trying to defend current practice. So what I’m trying (clumsily) to say is that you can’t just look up the research and expect that it will give you non biased, value free information. For example, the raw statistics would appear to show that home birth is safer than hospital birth (for the mother). However, they don’t mitigate for underlying privilege, ie women who have home births are far more likely to come from more affluent areas/be of a higher social class, and therefore are already more likely to have positive birth outcomes. The reason these privileges aren’t taken into account is that is notoriously difficult if not impossible to account for.

Op do you want people's personal experience of home births or do you want to hear whether people think home births are a good thing or not?

I haven't had a homebirth but the midwives did try to persuade me to with my second. I'm very glad I didn't, this might be of interest to you @Grumpos

I had a totally straightforward pregnancy, labour and birth with DD so was offered homebirth with DS (also straightforward low risk pregnancy) but opted for hospital. Got to hospital 6cm dilated, everything fine, laboured for just over an hour with gas & air. Had total placental abruption, started bleeding out, big red button pressed and room filled with hospital people. DS (perfectly fine and unaffected as it turned out) was delivered by CS with me under GA 12 minutes after the red button, no consent form, no shaving or gowning me for theatre, nothing.

I do realize that placental abruptions are rare, but they and similar obviously do happen to some people, often without any warning at all.

Hope everything goes smoothly for you OP, whatever you decide.