YOUR RIGHT TO CHOOSE!!!!! (Home Birth Versus Hospital Birth)

Member Name: katestuartuk

Product:	Home Birth Versus Hospital Birth
Date:	14/01/08 (112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: There are lots for both

Disadvantages: as above

Upon Having Your Baby at Home Vs Having Your Baby at Hospital

Discuss

Introduction

As some of you may know I had a beautiful baby girl early in October this year. I gave birth in a lovely birthing pool in my local hospital, with a wonderful midwife present, as well as my darling partner and my lovely sister. It was not how I had planned my baby's birth to go, though in location only - I had booked in quite early to deliver at home, but going more than 2 weeks over my due date had my community midwives jittering at the prospect of me having the baby at home, hence my brief stay in hospital. One thing I have learned about having a baby is that you can have plans for how you want it all to go, but you have to be completely adaptable because the one person who is actually really in charge (the baby) has plans of his or her own and if they don't fit in with yours then it's really a case of tough bananas! However, it is also a very good and important thing to be informed, and to know what the implications of one way or another may be for you, which is why I will try to be as honest as I can for you in this review. The main thing to remember in all of your reading and preparing is that there is no right or wrong way and that if you want things to go one way and they go in the opposite direction, the best thing in the world to do is just to go with the flow, do what feels right FOR YOU, accept it all as part of the bigger plan and move on to the business of adoring your new baby!


How Having a Baby Became Medical

Somehow, somewhere, having a baby became something you could only do within the clinical confines of a hospital labour ward. Someone high up in the medical profession decided one day that women needed help to birth. A load of old codswallop is what I say about that because although, in many cases, intervention (being induced, assisted delivery - like forceps - and C-Sections are all examples of intervention) not only helps, but saves lives, the majority of women are fully capable of giving birth by themselves. The fact is that if you go to hospital, you'll be very likely interfered with in an intervention type manner because not only are you surrounded by people who can, but your labour is likely to be longer simply because you ARE in hospital. When you're working to someone else's timeframes and not to your baby's, you will find that intervention rules the days - they have the skills and the equipment ready and at hand, so why not use it...?!
So nowadays, when you tell people you're having/have had a baby, they immediately ask you "which hospital did you have him/her at?" as though there isn't any other place or way to give birth other than within the four walls of a hospital ward. People, particularly men, I've noticed, think that a woman who wants to birth away from this clinical environment is not only stupid, risking her life and that of her child's', but also deeply selfish for wanting a different way in the first place. Why go back in time when you can go forward is their way of thinking. These people make me quite cross. I was a speaker on The Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 six days after giving birth to my daughter, and it amazed me that so many people still believe that hospital is the only place and indeed, the safest place to have your baby. They are quite wrong! Sometimes the old, tried and tested ways are the best.


How Being at Home Affects Labour

So what's all the fuss about staying at home to have your baby? Why would anyone want to have their baby at home? Well it's a fairly simple equation. When you are at home, you are in your own space. A space of your own creating, where you feel safe, comfortable, literally "at home". These are very important feelings to have when you are involved in the process of giving birth. Think about cats who go about the place for hours and hours looking for somewhere safe and warm to have their babies, and not resting, or birthing their kittens, until they have found such a place. We human ladies are not so different. Our brains, with all their chemicals, send out signals to the rest of our body in a way to advise all the separate parts of us that the coast is clear. It's a fairly primal thing, the instinct to keep our babies inside until such a time as our vulnerability in birthing cannot compromise our lives. You wouldn't want to get eaten by a bear in the middle of that final push, now would you?!!
It's a well documented fact that women who birth at home have shorter labours, less need for pain relief, and generally, a much better time of things. It's fairly simple to me. If you are at home, there is no chance of you being stuck in the back with an epidural, being hooked up to a monitor and not being able to move freely, or being whizzed off to surgery to for a caesarean. At home, you can walk around as you please, which gets the baby's presenting parts (normally the head) pushing down on your cervix to soften and widen it in preparation for the birth. At home you can eat and drink as you please, preventing you from getting so tired later on that you give up and say okay to help, in whatever form it comes. At home you can pass the time with books, play music, take baths, films, pottering in the garden, the company of friends or family, anything that takes your mind away for a few minutes from the contraction, and stops you from feeling, 12 hours in, that you've been doing it all for at least twice that long. Most of all, and I can't stress enough how important this point is - being at home can often make for a much calmer mum. And calm is good. Very good. Particularly during labour.


How a Calm Mother Equals a Calm Labour

Having a baby is a very organic, orgasmic type of affair. In the same way that you couldn't possibly have an orgasm without being in a certain state of inner peacefulness, the same applies to the giving birth of babies. Think about our natural instincts of fight or flight. If we are tense, if we are worried, if we are fearful at all, our bodies produce adrenalin in preparation for us needing to scarper at great speed away from danger, or put-'em-up to fight it off. That adrenalin stops the birthing process in it's tracks, leading to a much longer labour, and a baby who wants out, but can't get out. So, the way to a more gentle and calm labour, is for Mum to be gentle and calm (as much as you can be anyway). Adrenalin IS required, but only at the very end, when you are at the business of actually pushing the baby out. For the rest of the time, calmness and tranquillity are the order of the day (or night!).



How Being In Hospital Affects Labour

Imagine you are in a place that you really don't want to be in - are you calm? Hospitals and Doctors have a funny way of increasing people's blood pressure - it's known as White Coat Hypertension - and it's probably because we have deep associations to death and pain and illness with places like hospitals and doctor surgeries. Pretty natural reaction, given that you don't visit a hospital unless you or someone you know is ill. Right?
Being surrounded by lots of medical folk is a good thing if you are in dire straits (the place, not the band...!) but medical folk tend to want to speed things along if certain timescales (often ones that are not always medical, but rather money or target related...) aren't being met and this leads to INTERVENTION. And it's a common known fact that you are more likely to need intervention if you go to hospital to have your baby and more likely to have none at all if you stay at home. Hmmm. Sensing a pattern here...

Intervention, Intervention, Intervention.

So what's all the who-ha about intervention then? A lot of intervention happens because mum is so busily involved in the business of labour that she just says yes whatever to everything that's offered - it's hard to say no when you're in the middle of having a baby. A lot of things are offered simply because they are now accepted as the norm. Of course if your baby is in distress, if your baby is stuck in the birth canal, or if a back to back baby is giving you pain, then intervention is obviously the best route to go for both mother and baby, but it tends to be that one thing will follow another. If, for example, you decide to have an epidural, you are more likely to need an assisted delivery because all those pushing ques, all the chemical reactions from your brain to tell you and your baby what to do next get muddled up and you don't feel half of them because of the numbness! So labour is longer, and baby gets a bit pissed off at all the hassle it's having to endure and starts kicking off! I was offered intervention when I went into hospital to have Eva in the form of inducing drugs to get my labour going stronger and then I was asked if I would like my waters to be broken to speed things along. I said no to both, but it seemed easier to say no because I had been prepared for them to ask me and I knew what I did and didn't want. There are times when intervention can save lives, and there are times when it is simply preformed to keep the conveyer belt of maternity wards running smoothly.

How You Really Do Have the Right To Choose

Gosh how come they let you go so long? When are you being induced? Why are you still pregnant?!!!! These are questions I endured for the last two weeks of my pregnancy, with people presuming that as I was overdue, the only course of action was a trip to the local Infirmary and a swift induction to produce my baby in line with all the written texts that say a pregnancy is 38 - 40 weeks gestation. Boll*ks to that! Babies come when they are ready, and as long as you remember that, you have my full permission to clout anyone who utters any of the questions at the top of this section! The idea of our health care service is that we are offered help and medical assistance but no-one is there with a big stick saying you MUST have this treatment. If you are sensible, you will look at whether your baby is happy and healthy and base your judgement on how to proceed on that. No-one can tell you where you can and can't have your baby - if you want to be at home then your community midwives must assist you. If you do not have their support then speak to your GP. If you still have problems getting support for the birth you want you can speak to the head honcho of midwives - your community midwife can give you an address to write to.
However, if the thought of being at home to have your baby scares you silly, then go to hospital! Having the right to choose where you have your baby is simple about every mother to be thinking about where she feels most comfortable, and choosing that place to give birth.

How to Become a Birthing Diva!

First things first - work out what you want before you need to. So as soon as you feel like thinking about the birth (once you are over the initial euphoria or otherwise of discovering you're pregnant), try to imagine how you want things to be, whether your gut instinct is towards the idea of a hospital birth or a home birth. There is no right or wrong, and as soon as you learn to follow your maternal instincts, you will be on the path to a beautiful birth, because no matter how you birth, in the end, as long as your baby is happy and healthy, you will be happy too.

My Experience

I wanted desperately to have my baby at home but when the time came (with me 18 days overdue) and I looked into the eyes of my community midwives and saw the human equivalent of rabbits in headlights lurking there, I knew hospital would be the best place for me and my baby girl, and I was right. I knew what I wanted - a calm, soft, gentle birth for my baby - and I got it because I took the calm centred me into hospital with me, and made sure that my birth supporters (Himself and my little sister, mother of two) knew what I wanted too. This meant they could make sure I got my wishes even if I was in the middle of a contraction and not able to speak. I knew that if I had pushed for it, the community midwives would have had to attend me at home, but I felt more comfortable and confident and calm in hospital. It's all about running with whatever you feel at the time and seeing how it pans out. I never imagined having my baby at hospital, but that's how it worked out in the end.


Conclusion

Pros and cons of a hospital birth
You will have access to a wider range of pain relief if this is what you want or end up needing. You will also have all the medical mod cons you could possibly need and a few more besides. You may feel safer, knowing that all this is available to you, which could help your birth experience.
However, the clinical environment is more likely to slow your labour down, even if you were going great guns before you arrived at the hospital. This slowing down of labour is more likely to lead to intervention and the need for stronger pain relief. You probably won't know your midwife and you may end up with a different midwife half way through your labour.
Finally, consider the recent news stories about bugs and viruses prevalent in hospitals - they are, after all, full of sick people.

Pros and cons of a home birth
If you have problems you will probably have to transfer to a local hospital and depending on how far away that is, the journey could be hard. I travelled to the hospital contracting mildly, and that was bad enough! You may be one of these people who feels secure and more confident in hospital.
However, your labour is more likely to be easier and shorter if you are in a relaxed state in a relaxing place (like your own home!). You will be less likely to need pain relief or intervention of any kind. You can create the exact conditions you want - candles, lovely baths, calm music. And afterwards, you can climb (or crawl...?) into your own bed with your new baby and just be.

You can probably tell where my heart lies. If I could, I would encourage every mother of every unborn baby (as long as there were no serious health complications) to have their babies at home. But I am not you. So... My advice to you is to go with your gut. Do what feels right FOR YOU and don't think you have to justify yourself to anyone. You are the mother of this tiny life inside you and whether you believe it yet or not, you DO know what is right for you and whatever you do WILL be the right thing for you both. Have faith in your motherly instinct, learn to listen to it, and enjoy every minute of your life together.

Summary: Listen to your gut instinct - it will be right!