Home birth

Following on from the lovely homebirth story by LAJ, who is also our baby carriering expert and runs the baby carrying classes in our shop, I decided to look more into homebirth.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, 99 per cent of British babies were born at home. Obviously that situation has somewhat changed over the last century, but would you risk having a baby at home? Or is hospital still the safest environment?

Arguments have raged for decades as to the safety of home births. The general assumption has always been that a hospital birth is safer for both mother and child, but in 1996 the British Medical Journal published several studies on home birth safety and concluded that home birth was ‘safe for normal, low-risk women, with adequate infrastructure and support’. Nevertheless, many health professionals are still wary about home births, believing that, in the event of anything going wrong, hospital is still the best place for both mum and baby.

The benefits of a home birth are obvious: you’re in comfortable, recognisable surroundings; you have total privacy and don’t have to queue for toilets, showers etc in the hospital and you can also (within reason) move around as you wish.

In 1994, the National Birthday Trust Fund’s study of home birth in the UK covered almost six thousand planned home births. The results were very interesting!

• the home birth group had roughly half of the risk of ending up with a Caesarean section, compared with the hospital group (2 per cent v 4 per cent)
  
  
• the home birth group had roughly half the risk of ending up with a ventouse or forceps delivery (2.4 per cent v 5.4 per cent)
  
  
• mums who planned home births were less likely to suffer post-partum haemorrhage
  
  
• babies in the planned home birth group were significantly less likely to suffer birth injuries

In today’s culture of ‘the blame game’ there is still - perhaps not surprisingly – a reticence within the medical world to sanction home births. Authorities and health boards worry about the consequences of anything going wrong and are many are therefore likely to encourage you to go to hospital.

If you’ve decided that you do want to have a home birth, then no one can force you to go to a hospital, but there are definite situations when home birth is not a good idea.

If, for example, you suffer from a chronic condition such as diabetes or high blood pressure then a home birth is not advisable. The same applies if you have a previous childbearing history which includes forceps delivery or post-partum haemorrhage.

If you experienced any form of special circumstances in your pregnancy, such as multiple births or pre-term labour or if you fall into the ‘older mother’ category, then, again, your midwife would be likely to advise against a home birth.

So, would you have a homebirth? If you have had one please tell us about your experiences.