It’s interesting that this blog post popped up this morning as I had a little chat with my current class about home births yesterday. Thanks to Chilled Mama for sharing so I can pass on and Live, Love & Birth for writing.
The number one reason I hear about not wanting a home birth from those who are pregnant is that they think it will be better to be in hospital ‘just in case’. (The number one reason from dads is the mess )
The research tells us that planned home births are as safe as hospital settings in low risk, not first time pregnancies. For first time moms the chance of a serious negative outcome happening is elevated slightly but the absolute risk is still very low.
We also know that women have better outcomes the longer they stay at home and for those that stay at home for the full event there’s less chance of needing interventions, less chance of getting an infection, less chance of baby being admitted to NICU and more chance of achieving a vaginal birth after caesarean (vbac).
We know that women who feel safe, secure, loved, respected, listened to and in control birth with better outcomes and with a more positive experience than those that don’t, and we know being in a home environment provides those things in a greater capacity than a hospital.
We know that when women are able to choose the position and movements they feel best with in labour they have better outcomes. We know that in hospital women feel restricted to their rooms in labour and those rooms are often quite small (but conversely when rooms are large they feel too clinical and cold).
We know that there’s stupid rhetoric among people who have no clue whose immediate response to people discussing the idea of having a home birth is ‘ooh you’re brave’ which is neither helpful nor accurate but goes a long way in affirming the idea that home birth is risky business without any basis in fact.
There are a multitude of resources for people who are thinking about a home birth including meet ups at most of the local hospitals to discuss other people’s experiences, and the fabulous Greater Manchester Homebirth (morning tag fail, find them on Facebook!) who also run an active support group.
Ultimately, this is YOUR choice and not that of your partner, mother-in-law, Janet your work colleague, Martha on the till at Tesco, your midwife or your consultant. YOUR CHOICE, as everything to do with your care in pregnancy and birth is.
Oh, and dads and partners? There is no mess and you don’t need to clear it up anyway. Your job is to support your partner and your baby and before you even realise it everything has been cleared away. There’s probably more mess from your Friday night takeaway tbh.
*side note: when I refer to hospital I mean an along-side unit of delivery suite and birth centre, as that’s what we have here in Stockport
Risks discussed: https://www.nhs.uk/…/births-at-home-or-in-hospital-risks-e…/
And: https://www.nct.org.uk/…/giving-b…/home-births-are-they-safe
And: https://www.tommys.org/…/midwives-answ…/are-home-births-safe
