My sister wants a homebirth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's your sister's body/baby, so your sister's choice. Keep your opinions to yourself and be supportive

Disagree on be supportive. It's not fair to ask OP to fake it. She's also entitled to disengage.

[Anonymous]

If you know when she's gone into labor call the cops on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s none of your business. If you want to make it your business, encourage them to have a licensed and regulated midwife. Not a “birth worker” someone with a degree and deep connections to their local health care community. I had two excellent homebirths, one where I also was sent to be monitored during pregnancy by an MFM and an endocrinologist. Both who complimented and coordinated care with my midwife just fine. Midwives work in community and care not just for low risk, but the average risks associated with birth. Hopefully she lives in a state where homebirth midwives are legally able to carry anti-hemorrhage drugs. If not, that would give me pause. My midwives had to maintain emergency procedures protocols and neonatal resuscitation certification. The same certification and drills that your hospitals should be doing. Homebirth isn’t the issue here. Unattended care, distrust in systems is a much bigger issue.

I'm glad you and your babies were born healthy and safe, but what you listed here is not nearly enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you know when she's gone into labor call the cops on them.

It’s legal to have a home birth. What do you think the police will do, arrest her? Is a back of a police car birth somehow preferable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Millions of babies were/are born this way it’s fine.

And a large percentage of those babies, and mothers, died in childbirth. It’s insane to say “it’s fine”

Far too many babies and mothers today die before, during or after hospital births. It is insane to suggest hospital births are all safe and home births are all unsafe. There is a lot of variability among hospitals and among midwives that attend home births.

I worked for years in a NICU. Without a doubt, home births have a way higher relative risk of neonatal complications than hospital births. The vast majority of HIE cases were home births. Only a handful were hospital births.

[Anonymous]

Home birth is always a clusterf*ck discussion on DCUM.

I had a homebirth attended by 2 midwives and a midwife in training. Labor itself was insanely hard, the hardest thing physically I have ever done, and I totally understand and support other people wanting an epidural or any other birth that is right for their situation.

However, the maternal care and attention I received was top notch, I was in the privacy of my home with my husband, and my newborn nursed and latched right away.

It was a low risk pregnancy and everyone was ready to transfer to a nearby hospital if any issues arose.

I find the people who come down on the side of the "hospital is the only place for all births" are generally dismissive of the trauma women experience with substandard care during labor and postpartum. It's a lot of "well as long as there is a healthy baby" at the end of a patronizing, highly medicalized process then the women should STFU and deal with the way they were treated. There are a LOT of women out there who have had terrible hospital births.

I reject that a healthy baby is the only thing that matters. The mother is not just a vessel and the way she is cared for during labor matters too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I’m physician and I am so sorry. People on this thread making these statements and citing all the stats are ignoring so many confounding variables. They’ve obviously never had to comfort women who lost their infants bc they waited too long to go to the hospital.

That being said, you don’t get to make this decision. The best thing you can do is be there for your niece or nephew and if things start going south encourage proper care.

Tragically, many more maternal and infant deaths occur before/during/after hospital births than home births.

Are you talking in absolute terms? Because i hope you understand that there are millions more births in hospitals than home births.

Obviously.

My point is that hospitals can be and often are unsafe places to give birth.

This is straight up propaganda.

Nope. Hospitals are increasingly understaffed. We have horrible maternal and infant mortality rates in the US and the vast majority of births are in hospitals.

I have nothing specifically against hospital births, I myself had my daughter in a hospital but I think it's completely insane to bash women who choose an alternative setting for their birth, given how appalling the hospital outcomes are.

the only place more understaffed than a hospital is your house. no doctors or nurses there.

Actually having a professional trained in facilitating childbirth who is with you continuously is more than most people get in the hospital. People have had babies the hospital without a single medical attendant in the room.

Yes, there are bad midwives and bad OBs out there. A good midwife knows when a transfer to the hospital is needed.

Homebirth midwives are laughably untrained compared to OBs and even L&D nurses. You’re much better off with a doctor overseeing multiple laboring women at once than one crunchy “birth workers” with you all day.

In other developed countries midwives deliver most babies and they have much better birth outcomes in those countries.

Every other developed country has universal health care which is why they have much better birth outcomes in those countries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you know when she's gone into labor call the cops on them.

It’s legal to have a home birth. What do you think the police will do, arrest her? Is a back of a police car birth somehow preferable?

It's not when you're using an unqualified midwife and she's also deliberately endangering a child
And if something is going wrong they can get them to a hospital more quickly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Home birth is always a clusterf*ck discussion on DCUM.

I had a homebirth attended by 2 midwives and a midwife in training. Labor itself was insanely hard, the hardest thing physically I have ever done, and I totally understand and support other people wanting an epidural or any other birth that is right for their situation.

However, the maternal care and attention I received was top notch, I was in the privacy of my home with my husband, and my newborn nursed and latched right away.

It was a low risk pregnancy and everyone was ready to transfer to a nearby hospital if any issues arose.

I find the people who come down on the side of the "hospital is the only place for all births" are generally dismissive of the trauma women experience with substandard care during labor and postpartum. It's a lot of "well as long as there is a healthy baby" at the end of a patronizing, highly medicalized process then the women should STFU and deal with the way they were treated. There are a LOT of women out there who have had terrible hospital births.

I reject that a healthy baby is the only thing that matters. The mother is not just a vessel and the way she is cared for during labor matters too.

And you or your baby would have died had there been an actual emergency. You don't have the the time to transfer to a hospital.

You want to talk about trauma? Let's discuss telling a mother her baby is going to die because her perfectly normal pregnancy ended in a difficult labor and delivery and the 5 minute trip from home to hospital wasn't quick enough.
But hey she got to munch on brioche.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Millions of babies were/are born this way it’s fine.

And a large percentage of those babies, and mothers, died in childbirth. It’s insane to say “it’s fine”

Far too many babies and mothers today die before, during or after hospital births. It is insane to suggest hospital births are all safe and home births are all unsafe. There is a lot of variability among hospitals and among midwives that attend home births.

I worked for years in a NICU. Without a doubt, home births have a way higher relative risk of neonatal complications than hospital births. The vast majority of HIE cases were home births. Only a handful were hospital births.

+1