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Natural Birth
Unassisted Birth at home
Ok I have been lurking on this board & I have pretty much made up my mind on having an unassisted birth at home without a doula or midwife present. I have read up on it & researched it over & over again. I have had two other children, both born in the hospital & I had the epidural both times. I honestly have had both my birth experiences ruined. With my first baby I was young & they made me feel like crap for even having a baby & while I was pushing to deliver my first son someone kept knocking on the door & people kept coming in & out of my room, then after I had him the nurse rushed me out of bed to go to the bathroom, I was still numb & fell. Then they brought me back the wrong baby from the nursery. Then my second birth there were way too many people in my room observing me & the main doctor was trying to make me push without breathing in between & I just felt like a little experiment to them. So this time I have decided to deliver my baby at home, I haven't told my doctors what my plan is as they might try to talk me out of it. I am going to continue with my pre natel care but when the time comes I am gonna saty home & do it alone just me & dh of course. We made the baby alone so we should deliver the baby alone. I want it to be a magical experience just us as a family will be there & I don't want no poking or prying or vaginal exams or someone ubruptly breaking my babys water so I've decided to take the Ol natural route & I am going to the extreme with it but I am super excited & comfortable with my plan plus everything looks good & babys head down but even if she was breached I could have her by standing up & not pulling her out but just letting her slide out. I am really focusing mentally on this & if anything does go wrong I will call 911 but I have complete faith in my body & I feel my baby has came to me in a dream & told me this is how she should enter the world. Sorry this is extremly long but I want to know how many other mommas out there are having unassisted births, from what I've been reading its becoming quite common.
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Re: Unassisted Birth at home
Honestly, I think you are nuts. I have had two beautiful homebirths with a MW, but I would never do it without one. Just because you read about it online does not mean you are anywhere near able to anticipate and be able to spot problems or challenges. By the time you are calling 911 it could be too late.
Yes, birth is natural, but there is a reason that MWs have been around since the beginning of civilization.
As the PP said- there are forums for this on mothering. I highly suggest you visit them if you have not already. There is a lot more than just letting your baby slide out.
GL
What do you have against home birth midwives? Many are highly educated, very hands off and willing to let you and SO participate in as much as you want and keep things absolutely as low intervention as possible. I would NEVER plan an unassisted home birth, no matter how much reading you have done. Good luck with your decision?
I had 2 HB's with a mw and my first one had shoulder dystocia for 3 min. I wouldn't have had ANY idea how to fix that had my m/w not been there and by the time an ambulance would have been there it would have been to the point where my DD would have had brain damage.
I'd look into a HB mw who is hands off and is there to make sure all goes well
I'm with everyone else. I had a homebirth with a trained and experienced midwife. After doing the research I felt this was the best option for us. I would never plan an unattended birth relying on just some reading to save the day in case of complication, and the fact that you think a breech baby will "slide out" after just standing up tells me that you haven't even been consulting reliable sources in your reading. Nor is breech presentation the only complication that might arise.
Cases like these is why natural birth mamas have a reputation of valuing the experience over the health of the baby. A midwife will not force vaginal exams or rupture your membranes. And seriously, you must recognize that there is a big friggin difference between conceiving a baby in private and delivering a baby the same way. To the best of my knowledge no woman has ever died from the process of conception. It is everything that comes after that puts her at risk, and countless women (and their babies) have died in childbirth.
Are there successful unattended births? Sure. Are there many emergencies that could arise requiring more expertise than a labouring woman could garner from just reading a few books? Absolutely. I'm sorry you had negative experiences in the hospital but it doesn't have to be that way. Look into a trained midwife and you could still have the positive experience you are looking for while working to ensure the health of you and your baby.
I have to agree with PP here: your best bet might be to find a homebirth mw to assist you, that way you can have your baby safely and (hopefully) without repeating the traumatic experiences you've had at hospitals.
Also wondering what your dh is thinking about all of this? How did he handle your previous deliveries? I know that my DH is extremely supportive of me in pretty much every way imaginable, but the sight of blood/bodily fluids/medical procedures etc makes him a little bit squeemish.
If you were to do it totally unassisted with only your dh there, it might put too much pressure on him even if everything went "according to plan".
This is just plain ridiculous and irresponsible.
Best of luck to you!
As a pp mentioned, check out the UC board on MDC. It's full of information. Also there are some great books out there- I recommend Unassisted Childbirth by Laura Shanley. You might also want to try to get your hands on some textbooks like Holistic Midwifery or Varney's Midwifery. Heart and Hands is also good, but doesn't quite go into depth enough for my liking.
I'm pretty sure my next pregnancy will be a UP/UC.
I thought you were nust, then you talked about a breech baby just sliding out, and you completely lost me.
I had an unassisted homebirth that was unplanned. DH delivered DD2 and we had no issues. It was a very quick and easy birth, and it was stressful and frightening doing it on our owns. Even with the paramedic on the phone talking DH through it.
No one said anything at the time, but when the paramedics and midwives arrived they considered me borderline heamorrhaging and I continued to gush blood after they arrived. They administered the necessary drugs and all was well.
When you're the one in labour you know how vulnerable you are and how reliant you are on the people around you knowing what they're doing, and taking good care of in terms of your physical health, the health of the baby and in terms of your privacy and dignity.
Can your husband really attend to all of that?
I am really hoping this is MUD.
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
Ditto.
All of this. I'm an L&D RN, and yesterday we had a patient come in that was an unassisted delivery at home (kind of sketchy on whether or not it was planned...) and she had a postpartum hemorrhage. Lost 2000mL of blood. Could have been potentially very dangerous had EMS not shown up shortly after and transported her to the hospital.
Like many others have asked -- what is the problem with a midwife homebirth?
ladies, chill. this sounds like MUD. " even if she was breached I could have her by standing up & not pulling her out but just letting her slide out "
who planning an UC says that? and who calls it "OI"
i don't believe this post for a second.
i call a joke from another board sometime soon. remember a few months ago when some board was bored and decided to come play around here?
THIS.
If this is not MUD, I am guessing you are talking yourself into this due to money issues. If it is money, please just work some kind of plan out with a homebirth MW and don't let money get in the way of the safety of you and your baby.
I am surprised that as a midwife you would encourage this, or that you would do it yourself - but even if you do it is different because at least you have the midwifery background to help you.
I think your decision is a result of your bad experiences, and not clear-minded. Anyone who had horrible hospital experiences like the ones you spoke of wouldn't want it to happen again. ....But doing at home isn't going to make those bad experiences go away, OR prevent something from going horribly wrong.
Definitely look for a homebirth midwife or birthing center. Also, you didn't mention it, but are you still using your same doctors from previous pregnancies? The things that happened to you are not "normal" good hospital practices. What you're doing is like saying "I'll never eat a hamburger again!" after visiting a roach infested White Castle - not all hospitals/doctors/nurses/midwives/etc. are created equal. This is WAY too rash IMO.
Please take an neonatal resuscitation class (it's not the same as infant CPR) with your partner and know what to do for a hemorrhage before finalizing your plans for a UA. If you pass out and he doesn't know what to do to get the baby breathing, then he loses you both. Being "educated" on the process or knowing how to tie off a cord is not sufficient in an emergency. 911 rarely responds within 4 minutes. The last time I was at a homebirth with a hemorrhaging mom, it took 12 minutes for the ambulance to come from a hospital that was literally down the street, less than a 1/4 mile away.
There's a reason why the World Health Organization has "creating more midwives" specified as a step to fulfilling their millennium goals to improve maternal and infant outcomes.
NorCalMOMS bio* NorCalBOTB* babywearingBIO
Harmony Doula
A single book isn't quite in depth enough to prepare a woman to handle all the possibilities of childbirth? Imagine that.
OP, I do not think this is a reasonable or safe option. There are plenty of ways to address the issues of your previous births that don't involve reading a couple books and trying to do it alone. Like pps, I would strongly advise you to interview some midwives in your area. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Because both your other births were in a hospital, I would not recommend flying solo just yet. I thought I wouldn't need my doula as much as I did or even the MW helping as much as she did. I would forget to drink water, for example, and realize three hours had passed only when my doula and MW insisted I have more water. I would forget to use the bathroom and make the pain worse by having contractions on a full bladder, and really needed the doula to remind me and help me to the toilet. My H and I did Bradley so he was prepared to help me, but he was busy helping fill the birth tub, getting me more heat packs, and all kinds of things. I recommend you have assistance not because I think you can't do it (you probably can), but because you will make labor harder or yourself and increase the chances that you'll have post-partum issues (from dehydration or something else simple like that). This is an experience you and your husband should enjoy, and having help will make that more likely.
Also, stuff to think about:
*childcare for your other 2 kids
*suturing if you have a severe tear
*cleanup after the birth (my place looked like a crime scene from "Dexter") and who will do it when you need to rest and your H is taking care of you/the kids
*whether your H has seen a complete childbirth before and can handle helping you with the placenta if you need it
The poster who said this nailed it:
Cases like these is why natural birth mamas have a reputation of valuing the experience over the health of the baby
Do some more research. There are better options than winging it with your husband no matter what articles from google you have read.
ETA: "we made the baby alone so we should deliver the baby alone"...WTF? Please, please tell me this is MUD.
I'm sorry you got this kind of response. There are first timers that UC so I'd think a 3rd timer would have a pretty good idea of the birth process. I suggest you ask your question on this board instead.
https://www.mothering.com/community/f/306/unassisted-childbirth
i'm not sorry she got this kind of response. i think it's one thing to educate yourself and prepare for a UC. it's a totally different thing to say some of the things the OP said in her post.
i support women having the kind of birthing that they want. but i don't support women making ridiculous statements like "if my baby is breech, i'll just stand up and she'll slide right out" or whatever she said almost exactly like that.
it's ignorant, irresponsible, wreckless and dangerous. she has clearly not thought about what it really means to have an UC. i get that she came here for advice and possibly hoping that someone could point her in the right direction. but i think she would have gotten much different responses (including from me), if she had not gone into the long commentary that revealed how little thought she'd put into this thus far. it is worded like MUD, just like the nonsense post from another board several months ago.
like another PP said, if her reasons for having an UC birth are simply that she doesn't want another experience like those she had in the hospital, then she can accomplish that by other means. If she really wants to have an UC b/c she wants to have an UC, then that's different. but i don't get that from her post. i get that she wants to have an UC b/c she is still angry about her hospital birth. as if there is nothing in between those two extremes.
I think you are right about this being MUD. She posted on a loss board on Feb 22, and shes 33 weeks along now. Feburary was only 3 months ago and you don't post there when you're pregnant so either this pregnancy is made up or something.. I don't know. lol
https://media.community.thebump.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/63697858.aspx -hers is one of the responses. I dont think a pregant woman would be welcomed on a loss board offering condolences.
https://community.thenest.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/63492296.aspx