Is a home birth 'allowed' for a 5th pregnancy

[twinklegreen]

Hi, my sister is pregnant with her 5th child. Her previous four have all been very straightforward pregnancies and she has had 4 home water births with no complications. She was informed by the midwife at her booking appointment that as it was her 5th she would automatically be under consultant care. She is really worried that this will mean that she will be put under pressure to give birth in hospital this time.

She is aware that they cannot force her not to have a home birth, however really doesn't want one if it's going to go against medical advice.

She is only 32 so her age is not a risk factor.

I guess I'm just wondering if consultant care automatically means you can't have a home birth, does anyone have any experience of this? It doesn't seem logical that after 4 sucessful births she is all of a sudden classed as 'high risk'.

Now feel free to ignore me as my only experience of pregnancy is through watching programs, but I'm sure I saw "home birth diaries" and one of them had about 6 kids and she was having a planned home birth.

oh it's to do with the fact that the more pregnancies you ahve the more likely you are to hav ea pph or something random like that

I have a friend who had homebirths for numbers 6 and 7, and planned one for number 8 but ended up being induced

in fact, it was prob the person Juney mentioned cos she was on homebirth diaries for her 7th

Look on homebirth.org.uk - they've got a nice section on 'grand multiparas'

Thanks for your quick responses ladies

I am under consultant care but had a home birth - but it was for something that wouldnt be affected by giving birth at home. I think its to do with risk of PPH - I would try and find the statistics to see how much of an increased risk it is.

Not sure if this helps but my Mum had my sister at home and she was her 6th.

One of my friends has just had her 6th baby - and 5th homebirth. So no, this is not true. She has never seen a consultant with any of them

I have 7 dc. Numbers 4,5 and 7 all planned HB.

Twins first were a section so hospital obv. Dc3 was planned hb but got stuck, all well though. Dc6 was induced.

It is the risk of pph that they worry about.

She sounds like perfect hb material to me

Thisisyesterday is that the lady with the huge baby with shoulder dytocia? She was fab!

Thanks everyone for the replies, my sister went on the homebirth website and is feeling alot more reassured about things now