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Where would you give birth?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Inspired by SCC's recent successful home birth!
Today it was announced that by 2009, expectant mothers will be able to choose whether they go to hospital, a midwife-led unit or stay at home to have their children delivered
How on earth this will be implemented given the way maternity services already are in some areas, if you were going to give birth, where would you want to do it? And why?
Hospital?
Midwife-led birth centre?
Home?
Never?
Interested in what the men would also do if it was physically possible for them!
My choice would always be in hospital. I don't like hospitals, I don't like the way a lot of women are treated when they are giving birth, but I'm not prepared to risk even the smallest risk 'just in case' I needed urgent medical assistance, as every second counts. If 'home-from-home' birth centres had fully equipped theatres in them rather than relying on transferring to hospital if needed, I'd happily give birth there.
Today it was announced that by 2009, expectant mothers will be able to choose whether they go to hospital, a midwife-led unit or stay at home to have their children delivered
How on earth this will be implemented given the way maternity services already are in some areas, if you were going to give birth, where would you want to do it? And why?
Hospital?
Midwife-led birth centre?
Home?
Never?
Interested in what the men would also do if it was physically possible for them!
My choice would always be in hospital. I don't like hospitals, I don't like the way a lot of women are treated when they are giving birth, but I'm not prepared to risk even the smallest risk 'just in case' I needed urgent medical assistance, as every second counts. If 'home-from-home' birth centres had fully equipped theatres in them rather than relying on transferring to hospital if needed, I'd happily give birth there.
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Comments
Depends what was on TV at the time. Wouldn't want to miss anything good by going to the hospital.
Go private they'd arrange a TV to be around if there was anything good on.
On a more serious note if I was a woman I'd go hospital, but I'd like to be given the choice to have it at home
My sister in law had a natural home waterbirth when she delivered my niece and it was beautiful and fantastic and she wouldn't have changed it for the world, even though complications did arise after the birth and mother and baby did have to go into hospital.
However the husband categorically does not want me to have one which I think is unfair - its my body I think i should choose where I give birth.
I really don't think hospitals are necessarily the best of places to give birth though. Michel Odent pioneered a fantastic centre in France, and if that money tree did exist, I wish that could be the norm in the UK. Still, when the time comes, my partner has his role - as a buffer between myself, staff members and unnecessary intervention.
Its mad even if you've got loads of cash the choice is so limited (I'm not saying that I have loads). Given that i live in london I would have thought it would have been greater but my only two viable options are still either my local NHS hospital or the Portman or the chealsea and westminster which is essentially a bit of a nicer room in an NHS hospital (both of the last two are around an hours drive or more in rush hour and not really practical if your in labour).
I am mildly swayed by the Portmans offer of a molton brown goodie bag and a bottle of champagne upon the arrival of the baby.
Oh totally [south Londoner too]. It's very frustrating and scary - which are not the emotions that a pregnant woman should have when thinking about her options.
Where would you send the in-laws, assuming you wouldn't have them in the house?
Whilst I was expecting Sophie and I was obsessively watching all the baby and birth programmes on Discovery Health, there was one on there where the lady had a home birth and for a minute the baby looked like it wasn't going to breathe by itself, and whilst I know that the midwives are trained in rescusitation and everything, my heart was absolutely in my mouth, and it wasn't even my baby. I knew then that I'd been right that hospital was the right choice for me.
Also, for personal reasons which I won't go into, I don't think Mr M could take the strain of a home birth, simillarly to Go Away's bloke.
I think I should say also that whilst I appreciate that there ARE NHS horror stories out there, I have had six good experiences and some very good care from some wonderful midwives at four different hospitals.
Out of interest, Miffy, did you see the same midwife throughout your pregnancies? A friend of mine recently gave birth and the first appointment she had, she loved the midwife and they established a really good rapport, then at another appointment she had a different midwife, and she didn't really have a good experience with that particular lady. Luckily when she gave birth, she saw her lovely midwife again and she stayed on after her shift had finished. I know it's not always possible to see the same person owing to shifts etc, but one thing that really scares me about hospitals would be to be 'stuck' with a midwife who I didn't like at an earlier appointment.
Not sure how exactly it works though.
And in terms of the in-laws being around, the house is huge....if i had the birth in our bathroom then i'd just have to deal with kicking out his brother from the room across the living room. Or otherwise i could do it in the big jacuzzi in the basement and have the door to that area closed off. But ofcourse that means anyone going to the garage or coming into the house would hear me scream
My local hospital and antenatal unit only offer midwife led care. You now only see a specialist/doctor if you have any complications or abnormal test results. I would be happy with this since the head honcho Mr Hinshaw is an arse.
Or someone driving home and trying to open an automatic garage door getting a rather exclusive view of your chuff
My next baby will be born in a different hospital to Abbie though and under a different PCT so here's hoping it's a better experience.
No, I didn't. I'm not sure if you mean the one based at the GPs or the one at the hospital. But either way, no. For starters I moved house twice during my first pregnancy, twice during my second, once during my third and once during my fourth! But I saw the same midwife MOST of the time at the GP's surgery, each time, then went to hospital to have my babies and met new midwives who delivered them. Maybe I was just lucky but they were all very good. It wasn't a problem to me that I hadn't met the midwife who was delivering my baby before.
When I had my second and when I had Sophie there was a shift change during my labour as well, but to be honest that wasn't really a problem either.
Trust me, in the throes of labour you no longer care who sees it. You'd let the milkman have a look if you thought he could get that baby out.
Just out of interest which hospital was it?
I'm not entirely sure what i'd do. I have no idea of the pros/cons of any of the options, but would probably opt for hospital even though they smell funny
Southmead. The care was pretty dire by the midwives, but the health care assistants were great and of course the surgeon.
I thought people were meant to give birth at St Michaels? Or is that just the place people go for like prenatal care?
Mental note, avoid Southmead
All my stuff was done at southmead.
That is the kety for me. There is some sort of arrogance, particularly found in midwifery I have to say, which suggests that giving birth is straight forward and routine and that a large % of births which took place in hospital "could have" been carried out at home.
Thing is that retrospectively that's an easy argument to make.
Mrs MoK was classic routine first delivery. Carried well throughout the pregnancy, no symptoms of anything. Right up until baby was in the birth canal. Then she tore. Never seen so much blood in my life and she had to have a transfusion. When Hannah was born a few weeks ago there was no way that I was going to be happy for her to have the baby anywhere but where there was a theatre (especially because she had slightly raised blood pressure in last few weeks) and I'm pleased to say that she agreed.
I think the lesson, also classic normal routine pregnancy, where my sister in law suffered pre-eclampsia in the delivery suite was useful there.
Birth is a life-or-death moment. Always. We should never forget that.