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[quote=Anonymous]The risk of homebirth transfer for a FTM is somewhere in the ballpark of 23 percent to 37 percent. For a second time mom, it is lower, somewhere around 10 percent, but that is still quite high. Are you comfortable with that, OP?

I get the appeal of homebirth - I really do. I considered it for my first. But then I saw a good friend who had a healthy low risk pregnancy have a homebirth go awry, have to transfer to the hospital, nearly have her baby in the backseat of the midwives’ car, and her then have her child admitted to the NICU with numerous complications. She spent years picking up the pieces from that trauma and dealt with unimaginable guilt about her child’s health problems and her midwives were basically incommunicado after they dropped her at the hospital due to concerns about her suing them. They even left the birthing pool in her home and never came to
get it. She got no answers from them about what went wrong, no postpartum support, and had a difficult time getting copies of her medical records, which they had fully scrubbed. Homebirth midwives have a tendency to sell you on the experience but if things go badly you will find they are all about the mom “taking responsibility for her choices.” Even if that includes a dead or injured baby. Thankfully for them, because they aren’t required to have accountability to medical boards, licensing boards (in the case of CPMs and CMs), or carry malpractice insurance, they don’t have to have the same level of accountability for their bad choices that a hospital OB or CNM would and can hold that perspective — because they often are just not held accountable. My friend, unsurprisingly, chose the hospital for subsequent deliveries.

The trouble with homebirth is that an uncomplicated homebirth has the potential to be an incredible and empowering experience. The stories and photos of those can be very appealing—they sound and look intoxicating if you read enough. But at the end of the day you simply can’t predict ahead of time if you will have an uncomplicated delivery or an obstetric emergency requiring urgent medical intervention. So even though the latter hopefully doesn’t happen to you, it can and it does and in that case, home is simply the wrong place to be and can mean minutes between life and death for you and your baby.

For me, I ultimately decided I was not comfortable with the risks of homebirth and did not want to live with the potential guilt of prioritizing my birth experience over the safety and health of my baby in the event of complications, which I knew could not be predicted in advance. I wanted to have the peace of mind that if my child was injured or god forbid, died, or if I needed urgent medical care, that I would be in the best place to receive medical care and would not have to live with the kind of guilt my friend has. I’m all about choice, and I continue to believe someone who wants homebirth should have the choice, but I believe they need to be totally informed and aware of the risks and to still want to do it in light of time. The trouble is that most women who have successful home births only know the positive side of their perspective, and don’t know or understand the risks fully. [/quote]

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