Homebirth coping techniques and experiences?

[Ginmonkey84]

I’m almost 12 weeks pregnant and I’m planning to have a home birth all being well circumstances dictate I can go ahead when the time comes. Ideally I would like to have as much support with me as possible which is one of the reasons I am veering away from a hospital birth. Our hospital have a very strict one person policy and children aren’t allowed in the ward afterwards and after having a very highly medicalised pregnancy and birth of my twins I really would like to try and have a much more free birth that I’m more in control of and in an environment were I’m not surrounded by bright lights and people poking and prodding at me all the time. Unfortunately we don’t have a MLU near by so that option is out. Ive recently been thinking about coping techniques that I can apply to help me through those final stages. Has anyone birthed at home and have any recommendations?

I watched a favourite film, had favourite music, breathed a lot, birthing ball, tens machine and gas and air. Two home births dc 1 and dc3 (vbac) both lovely dc2 was an undiagnosed breech and a section. Awful. Good luck, I really recommend a HB if you are safe to do so.

I had 2 midwives from my team in attendance and my mum. You get undivided attention from the midwives and it's all very calm and private. My labours were brutal with contractions 5 mins apart from the start then quickly on top of each other. Back to back babies too. I had SPD and found no issues because of that. That gas and air is great!

I'm 36 weeks and planning a homebirth for my 3rd. First 2 were in a mlu. Starting to freak out a bit about the birth so following for calming reassurance.

I had a HB with DC2 a few weeks ago. Definitely hire/ borrow a pool. Even if you don’t want to have the baby in the pool it made my labour much more bearable. Squeezing my husbands hand very hard also helped ( think I wanted it to hurt him as much as I was hurting!). Don’t wait too long before using the gas ( I was afraid it would run out but there was plenty). You can have meptid /pethidine at home but I didn’t bother to have any prescribed as you need it 4hrs before birth to avoid side effects in the baby. Labour was 4.5 hrs from first contraction so would’ve been pointless anyway, but if you’re expecting a longer labour you might like the idea of knowing it’s in your fridge.

Mostly what kept me going was the thought that 30 mins of contractions in the car would have been unbearable and there’s no way I could have made it for extra pain relief.