All right, calm down. Just hear me out on this one. If you are pregnant and there is nothing wrong, there is no reason why you shouldn’t consider a home birth. Even with your first baby. Even if you live in a tiny flat. You should certainly be offered one when you book in with your 12 week check, and I would always say “Take it” and this is why:
With a home birth you get one to one care with a named team of midwives who you meet and develop a relationship with. You get all your ante-natal care in your own home so you don’t have to schlep yourself to the hospital and wait there for hours; they come to you in your own home. When your labour starts, you and all your stuff don’t have to go anywhere, you get to stay at home, where you are comfy and happy, they come to you. You can use gas and air at home, and ask for pethedine to be prescribed by your gp and keep it in the fridge in case you change your mind and need something stronger. You can eat and drink and move about as you choose. You can rent or buy a birth pool and be confident that you will be allowed to get into it when the time comes as you are the only one there in labour. At home your husband can sleep whilst you do your thing. You are already immune to all the bugs in your own home and you know the bathroom is clean because you jolly well cleaned it. Your other children can stay in their beds or go out with granny/auntie/the nice neighbour next door or be there with you as their sibling is born and you don’t need to worry about them being disrupted. You can burn candles, aromatherapy oils and listen to the music you want to. You do not have to labour under hospital protocols and you cannot have continual monitoring because the machine is not portable (hurrah!), instead you would always have monitoring via a sonic aid which is (by the way) just as accurate but they don’t like to offer it in hospital because it takes a midwife away from her other patients. At home there are no other patients, it is just you and your partner and your lovely midwife. You can get into the bath or shower after your baby is born and know it is clean (see above). You can have tea and toast after your baby is born and get in to your own bed with your partner and not be separated from him on that first vulnerable night.
If you have never laboured before and you are not sure who you are going to cope, why not go for a home birth and if you change your mind at the 11th hour, even before you go into labour, you can always just go to the hospital… you certainly can’t change your mind as easily the other way round. And if at anytime during your labour you do change your mind and want to go into hospital they transfer you in and stay with you… your own midwife who you have developed a lovely relationship with you. Homebirth (community) midwives tend to be self selecting – they only want to do the job if they believe in women giving birth naturally with support and love from a midwife. You don’t get a jobbing, bank midwife who is more interested in getting home for her tea than looking after you.
85% of women can give birth with no intervention. Occasionally something may happen or become apparent during labour which makes a home birth inappropriate, but your midwife will know this way in advance of it being a serious consideration and would always transfer you with speed and alacrity to hospital as soon as it becomes evident. But 85% of you will have no reason to go anywhere… you can stay exactly where you are most comfy… and give birth in the most wonderful way.
Just have a think about it, would you?
Have a look at the homebirth website: www.homebirth.org.uk