To (home) birth or not to (home) birth? That is the question...

[Bumpin]

A little advice please... Hope you're ready to read War & Peace.

I'm 26 weeks pregnant with my 2nd.

My DS is about to turn 2 (next week! sob) and his birth was very straight forward, woke up because my waters had gone at 3am, contractions started at 5am, went to hospital at 9am and he was born at lunch time. Sobbed into my tea and toast by the afternoon and home with a McDonalds late that evening.

The thing is... I hated the drive to the hospital, it wasn't helped by my DH actually driving 20mph the whole way, not exaggerating - so many angry overtakers, it was Covid so I was terrified that I would be told DH wasn't allowed to stay so I think I was quite nervous when we got there and not to mention I was in so much pain. I know that sounds obvious, being in labour and all, but I was still astounded by how painful it was. I demanded my birth plan was ignored and went straight to epidural.

Leaving the hospital was a nightmare, the midwife shift changed and all the computers had to be shut down for a technical reboot, we were told at 5pm we were free to go as soon as we'd signed one last form but didn't actually get given the form until 11pm. I know it's not the worst thing in the world by any means but it was sleeting by the time we left hospital and I felt like I had taken up space all afternoon.

It was mentioned at the time that if we had another we should consider a home birth, obviously this appeals because even in labour I am inherently lazy so not leaving the house sounds ace to me, I definitely felt most comfortable at home last time and hated being pulled out from my cosy bubble to go out to the car, I won't have to endure the comedy slow car ride, it hopefully will be easier from a childcare point of view for the toddler and afterwards I can eat a dominos straight away, right? But i'm terrified that on the day i'll be scared of the pain again and want an epidural, which obviously I sadly don't have to hand in my living room.

I've scoured websites and have read such lovely, positive stories about home births. I've watched that nice program on BBC where they all birth and drink tea but I can't find much on people who had an epidural the first time and then managed to home birth after that... I'd love to hear from anyone who had a hospital birth with pain relief the first time round and then had a home birth? Was it ok?

Thanks!

p.s I'm one of those babies that 'wouldn't have made it' had my mum had her planned home birth, I'm aware of the risks and still happy to give it a go so please no need for unrelated horror stories !

I'm going to trust my consultant who actually works in the NHS and sees the reality of it.

I’m curious. Everyone that’s saying it’s crazy to homebirth would you say the same about an MLU?

I work in maternity services and it's not something I would do. The other thing to worry about at the moment is the terrible pressures on the ambulance service, meaning if something does go horribly wrong, there may not be any way to transport you to hospital.

The other problem with getting your heart set on a home birth is that the hospitals are seriously overstretched currently. If there is too much pressure on the labour ward, the homebirth service gets suspended so that the midwives can support the ward. So you may need to brace for disappointment.

Ah this is really sad 😞 Home birth can be a safe and really beneficial option so not good to see that option being taken from women. I remember during covid when home birth services were suspended and there were desperate women considering free birthing they felt that distressed and desperate which is pretty scary.

@sourcreampringle it is sad, but people who freebirth….. ok, I can’t think of any diplomatic way to say it. Just that people who are willing to gamble their babies’ lives are not people I think highly of.

Yes it’s really scary to think of women taking that path 😯But probably very complex why they feel it’s their only option, also probably plenty of other women who wished to home birth who do go to hospital but find having to do so very distressing or traumatic. Just pretty rubbish not to have to that option there but no surprise given the way the NHS is currently.

Also work in maternity, and feel much the same way.

Though I will admit my opinion is mostly tainted by only ever seeing the home births that needed to be transferred in for whatever reason. Never hear about successful ones. And other than a student midwife I once got chatting too, I know no-one who has even attempted a home birth. It's an excellent point about home birth services being suspended. They regularly were while I was not on maternity leave, as were the outer lying MLUs due to staffing pressures.

Though it was never an option for me (too high risk), I would have considered a MLU connected to a hospital. Try for a vaginal birth, safe in the knowledge theatres and strong painkillers were just a short trolley ride away. Plus, the "local" non hospital MLU was a 30 minute drive away in the opposite direction from the hospital, which would put me over an hour away from the hospital.

I went the other way around in regards to painkillers btw. Needed less with my first than my second.

You don't seem to have any good reason for not going into hospital. You must be aware that there is a huge shortage of midwives and that people are waiting for a day and sometimes as long as 3 days for an ambulance. All that should really matter is the safe birth of your baby - and it seems pretty clear that you would be putting that at risk and adding to the current NHS crisis for the sake of a few home comforts for yourself.

I have had 3 home births and one hospital. The home births were brilliant I'd recommend to anyone who has a straight forward pregnancy/ no complications.
Baby 4 was emergency c section, but we knew a home birth wasn't an option and made that decision.

The community midwives we had were amazing, they're trained to recognise risk indicators and I felt comfortable. I also had a post natal complication after my son was born, there was a piece of retained placenta that caused me to haemorrhage 24 hours after having him. Community midwives were amazing again, they met paramedics at the house and stayed with me to hospital, I felt completely comfortable in their care and supported.