Natural home birth- my experience

Chezpot · March 2014

Hello! I know a lot of people come to these forums looking to discover what other peoples experience of natural birth is so this is my story.

I live in the uk and wanted a home birth due to not enjoying the care and intervention of the NHS for my last birth...I didn't like how I was treated and the care in hospitals can be inconsistent.

When I went into labour, two community midwives attended and were great- the care from them was exceptional and I was so relaxed, walked around, squatting at the end of the bed and generally I think, dealing with a natural labour as well as I could. I took prenatal yoga classes and the breathing techniques and visualisations really helped me get through it. The midwives commented that they thought labour had progressed really well- they arrived around 830 and we were at the just about ready to push stage around 1230.

At this stage my waters broke and unfortunately there was meconium which meant I had to transfer to hospital so an ambulance was called (the nosy neighbours would have had a field day haha) and I had a not gonna lie, super uncomfortable transfer to hospital.

Once at hospital, I was straight into a delivery room where the doc made it clear the baby may be in distress and we had to get him out so I just went for it and bam! 3 pushes later he was here. No medical intervention drugs wise required.

Although I didn't get the full home birth experience I wanted, I fully believe that being relaxed and in my own surroundings with the care of the midwives was why the birth was so complication free, everything went at my pace and there was no waiting around hospital corridors to be examined or put into a labour room and no anxiety about that situation.

Obviously I wish that I could have finished off at home however I would recommend it to anyone. There is a lot of fear surrounding both home births and natural births so I would say to anyone if it's what you want, don't doubt yourself and you can do it.