Home Birthing Logistics

[YummyMummy2019]

Hi ladies,

I'm hoping some of you lovely mums have had positive home births and can give me some advice.

We have the midwife and pool etc all sorted and the birth plan has been complete. But I was wondering as its now only weeks away about some of the logistics you don't really plan for!

For example im giving birth downstairs in the openplan part of our home but will obviously need to shower/bath upstairs afterwards as I did in hospital with my first baby. for example does your husband or midwife help with the getting up stairs and showering logistics or do they have baby while dad helps you?

the other thing I wondered is what actually happens after the birth when its at home, do they still examine you and hang around for a couple of hours like hospital births?

all questions I can ask my midwife of course but wanted a few opinions from the mums perspective :)

any other home birth practicalities and logistics welcome as It will be a completely diff experience for us this time vs the hospital birth.
x

The midwife has to stay with you two hours after the birth. Usually a GP will come the next day to check on the baby too.

I had a home birth but without a pool so I laboured in my bedroom and could easily get to the bathroom for a shower afterwards. My husband held the baby whilst I showered.
Midwives cane and went pretty quickly, I was ok, baby was ok, they left.
Great experience compare to hospital the first time round.

It's over 20 years since I had my home birth. I gave birth downstairs & I think the midwife came upstairs with me to make sure I was OK while I had a shower, & DH held the baby. The midwives stayed for a couple of hours afterwards & the GP popped in later in the day to make sure all was well.

As for practicalities, get some of those plastic sheets that decorators use from a DIY shop. Though I have to say, there wasn't really any mess at all.

It was one of the best experiences of my life actually.

I had 4 MWs present for my birth (it was a shift changeover) but a couple left after a short while.

One was outside in the garden, checking the placenta, another was keeping an eye on me with skin to skin etc. They also kept making me endless cups of tea and it was the only time in my life I’ve ever eaten a whole packet of biscuits to myself.

When I’d had about 30 minutes of skin to skin, DH had the baby whilst a MW and my mum took me upstairs to get showered and dressed. I didn’t see them much after that, they just checked on me in our bedroom intermittently. DH said they also helped him empty the pool and put everything back to normal.

By the time I’d come downstairs again, it was like they’d never been there. It was surreal. I gave birth at 9am and they were gone by lunch time. It didn’t feel intrusive at all. The community midwife checked on me the following day, and the hearing people came out too.

Loved my HB!

I agree there wasn’t much mess. Just have plenty of old towels to hand. I had to sit on a load afterwards as we had a cream sofa and I didn’t want that to contend with.

Oh and lots of milk and biscuits for the MW’s. I also went through and entire box of ice poles whilst I was labouring.

Thanks all that's super helpful x