I had a 9 day old patient yesterday here who was admitted for sepsis, among other things. Apparently the mom wanted a completely natural home birth and had the baby at home, in the bathtub full of warm water, without any sort of medical supervision. The baby somehow swallowed some yucky stuff in the bathtub and got an infection and had to be admitted. To top it all off, the baby was 10 1/2 pounds!! Can you say ouch? Then the mom was yelling at the lab people for taking blood and was pretty much blaming all the hospital staff for hurting the baby and such. Hmmm...
Moral of the story is, if you wanna have a super natural home delivery, awesome. Consulting some sort of medical expert or having someone on standby to assist or something seems like the smartest thing to do to me. You never know when something could go wrong. I, on the otherhand, will be in a hospital under constant supervision of a doctor, being pumped full of selfish-mommy drugs.
Re: Anyone planning a home birth?
I don't want a homebirth because I want medical help on hand should anything go wrong.
A friend of mine had a home water birth and she said she couldn't imagine anything worse than having to leave the house whilst in labour. She had a great experience
However, she had a supervised homebirth with a qualified midwife.
People like the nutter you're talking about are what give homebirths a bad name.
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
I'll be just fine at home with my 15-year-of-hospital-births, 10-years-of-homebirths midwife. And as a bonus, I won't be dealing with the risks and negative side effects of the "selfish-mommy drugs" (you said it, not me) or the rountine hospital interventions.
Gabriel Ross - August 24, 2009 * Vivienne Rose - May 1, 2012
My Blog
Well thanks for posting the horror story and making home births sound even worse.
I think any logical person would know to consult with a professional during labor and delivery and there are plenty home births that go just fine (just for the record).
This is the most inflammatory post I've seen in a long time.
I am not planning a home birth, but I just wanted to jump in to say
to this!
ughhhh yeahhhh!!!!!!!! oh my god im a nurse and the though of doing this by myself makes me want to drink a bottle of vodka!!!!!i stick with epidural
I think the majority of you need to unbunch your freaking panties. I'm PRETTY sure I never said "OMG! Home births are awful and everyone who has them is gonna have the same results as this idiot woman!"
I was just sharing what I thought was a pretty preventable, stupid situation with a woman thinking she could do everything on her own & ended up harming her child. Ya know like when you guys complain about "OMG! I can't believe so and so did THAT!"
My LORD, are you people defensive.
Of course we're defensive. We have to be. It's a natural process and I have to defend my decision to someone every single day. People have told me I'm endangering my own life, endangering the life of my unborn child, etc. Births at home have been going on a LOT longer than births in the hospital, I think people seem to forget that.
I read this on a blog today, and it really hit home to me:
"Just as a stillborn baby at home is dangerous and one at the hospital is unavoidable. A baby not compatible with life at the hospital is upsetting but if it happens at home it's a police investigation." Why the double standard?
Anyhow, I could go on and on, but I won't. To each their own. I'm not ragging on hospital birth, it's just not the choice for me and my family. I will be having our first born at home, hopefully in the tub, and with my midwife and husband, no one else. I see no need in pumping myself full of "mommy drugs" at a point where it's most important to be fully aware of my body and of this new life I'm delivering into the world.
And of course the baby was over ten pounds...home birth babies are statistically bigger than hospital babies because they're allowed to be carried to term!! No silly inductions, no OMG it's been a day after the DUE DATE!!! Home birth mammas can also have smaller babies too, but I've seen a large percentage of 8+ lb babies, at least through my own midwives practice.
Drugs are NOT selfish!
If home birthing is your thing, cool. Just make sure you understand the risks and DON'T do it without a midwife or trained medical professional.
I personally want to be surrounded by lots and lots of doctors and nurses. If anything should go wrong, I want the ability for the baby to be immediately attended to. I don't want to have to wait for 911 to send an ambulance.
Alright, sure. And you make sure you understand the risks of hospital birth and having all those "lots and lots of doctors and nurses" around you.
I think you misunderstood my post. I wasn't criticizing anyone's choice. I have nothing against home birth- it's just not something I would do.
Anyone giving birth should understand the impact of where they are birthing. There are risks to giving birth no matter where you do it.