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Natural Birth
oliversmommy32912
member
Homebirth Questions
oliversmommy32912
member
I am just starting to look into home birth as a serious option for the birth of our next child and have a few questions about the logistics. I had a hospital birth with my first and as we are looking into other options for our next baby we will be trying to conceive early next year I am realizing I'm a little clueless :-)
Who cleans up after a home birth? This is my husband's number one reason for wanting a birth center birth over a home birth.
Who checks on you after the birth and massages your fundus? Who makes sure you're not bleeding too much like the nurses did in the hospital?
If you have a tear do you get lidocaine or something else to numb the area while they do the repair?
Thanks!
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Re: Homebirth Questions
This may area from area to area, or midwife to midwife, but my experience is as follows.
The midwives cleaned up after the birth. They put in a load of laundry (the towels and sheets and clothing and whatnot), scrubbed a couple blood spots out of my carpet from when I got out of the tub, and anything else that was out. They were awesome, and when they left, you could not have guessed what had just taken place. The only exception was the birth tub itself- they didn't drain it, my husband had to do that.
The midwives stayed for a few hours after the birth, and came to my house every day for the next three days, and once a week for the next two-ish weeks after that. They gave us detailed information about how to check for excessive bleeding. I was satisfied with their care in this regard, and never had cause to worry.
I didn't have any tearing so no repair was needed, but they did have numbing medication with them to do repairs.
Honestly, a homebirth was the way to go for me. My husband and I spent a fair amount of time laughing about the differences between our homebirth and hospital birth experiences immediately after the midwives left from our homebirth- ease of accessing our own food, ordering in pizza, having our own clothing and personal items and not having to worry about packing, sleeping in our own bed, not listening to other babies crying from down the hall, no nurses barging in while we were trying to catch some sleep, etc etc etc. I did not enjoy being in the hospital after DS1 and it was so nice to be at home immediately after the birth with DS2. If I were to have another baby I'd definitely do it that way again.
Who cleans up after a home birth? My midwives did. By the time they left, we had one garbage bag full of laundry to do (that they would have thrown in the wash for me if I hadn't already had clothes in there). DH did end up helping to empty the birth tub, but that's about it. When they left you would have never known we just had a baby in the house.
Who checks on you after the birth and massages your fundus? Who makes sure you're not bleeding too much like the nurses did in the hospital? The midwives do. Mine stayed with us for about two hours after the birth. They then left specific instructions with my DH and mom, who would be in the house for the remainder of the day, to call them if any problems arose. They came in the days after the birth to check on me. To be honest, I got more care after the birth from them than I did with my last hospital birth, in which I was released after 24 hours and no one ever checked on me.
If you have a tear do you get lidocaine or something else to numb the area while they do the repair? Yes. My MWs carry all sorts of medical supplies - they weren't just women showing up with gloves and baggies. There was numbing shots, pitocin (in case of bleeding), oxygen, and a bunch of other stuff.
Ditto what everyone else said.
And ditto that my husband was also worried about the clean up and such.
My sister was there and the MWs and our doula got her to help run a load of laundry and take out a load of garbage. Someone made up our bed with fresh sheets - maybe my DH? - and I had a bunch of chucks pads that I put down on my side.
Repair: I don't think I got anything and my experience for repair wasn't great but I think that was unusual. They let the student midwife do it while they observed and guided her. Wish I had said a big no to that one.
One of the MWs stayed for a few hours after the birth. I had a shower. They got us settled in bed and we tried breastfeeding. Had the baby at 6am and I think they left between 9 or 10am? Our doula left an hour after that.
We were all snuggled in in our own bed soon after the birth. It was bliss. I slept for a little bit and then got up and ate some yogourt. We ordered burgers that my mom picked up before she came over. Loved being in my own home.
It was ideal for us and my husband, initially skeptical of home birth, was raving about it afterwards.Pretty much the same answers as above.
My midwife and her asst. cleaned up everything. When they first arrived after I went into labor they prepared the bed with two or three sets of sheets and mattress protectors. This was pure genius in my opinion because after the birth all they had to do was remove the top sheet and protector and we were all set. They also made me dinner afterwards-eggs toast and juice. Which I thought was so insanely over-the-top nice.
She also did all of the massaging and checking up to ensure the bleeding was normal.
I had a tear but it wasn't bad enough to need stitches and healed within a few weeks with no problem.
I just can't overstate how awesome it was to be so comfortable in my own home for my labor and delivery. Being able to sleep in your own bed afterwards is priceless!