Wow I obviously missed this thread, so very interesting to read everyone's views and experiences. I don't want a HB, strangely I actually feel like I'd be less relaxed being at home! Everyone is different - things can go wrong/ escalate quickly wherever you are, there's no way of knowing. Great thread though :-)
This thread is a very interesting read, not sure how I missed it initially. I dismissed the idea of a hb 1st time round but my birth was relatively quick & easy that I'm sure I would've been able to labour at home. Had that happened I would've been more calm, more able to 'enjoy it' by listening to the music I'd spent hours putting together. No need to listen to worrying sirens going off, I probably would've been able to get into the water much earlier & then stay in there as it would've been noticed that I was pushing with every contraction & I would've have been able to have my water birth. If I'm lucky enough to get pregnant again I'm definitely hoping to have a relaxed home birth, although, obviously, if I needed to get to a hospital I would & being only 10 mins away doesn't seem too bad when you've got 2 people's attention rather than being left alone for an hour (when we 1st arrived) or left to be prodded & have a thermometer shoved to the back of my mouth by a student midwife. I can completely understand why many people choose to give birth in hospital but I don't like the medicalised way labours & births are treated as if some mw's & dr's are in a hurry to get patients to give birth or leave them waiting when beds are short. Just my opinion.
This is a really intresting thread and I think all my thoughts on the subject have been expressed alreaddy that said I thoght I would share my experience
Where I live we had the option of the MLU which is geographically closer or slightly further away at a larger hospital with MLU on one floor and a birth centre (theatere consultants etc a floor down).
Whene discussing my options with the community midwife I opted for the larger hospital MLU as my reasoning was it was a lift ride to the medical intervention rather than an ambulance.
(My MW did push the local MLU a little as it was quiter saying more likely to get water birth etc but she was still happy for my to go to my choice.
When DIsco decided to put in an appearance H rang the hospital who told him get her to wait an hour and ring back we waited half an hour (the time to it took to put my clothes on) and rang back as we both felt my labour was progressing quickly. It was only at this point the hospital said to H they were full (in both MLU and the birthing suite) and said could I hold on a litle longer at home as labour had only started a few hours before us ringing?). H Said ok well I will ring the local MLU which we did and after a chat on the phone( well was more than that but to long to share here) we ended up at the MLU.
My care there was amazing we had one on one care from the MW (which we wouldn't have had at the larger hospital) our MW was very on the ball and as labour was progressing relatively rapidly she did a reasonable amount of heartbeat checking but the while experience was very calm. Because I had one MW all the time she realised a very short while into pushing that my waters were still intact and it was making pushing hard/ ineffectual so she popped them without one to one care it might have taken longer for this to be noticed resulting in a more tiring labour for me.
I was lucky to have an easy delivery and a healthy baby but if it hadn't been for our local unit I think we would have eiether ended up waiting to long or would have been found a corner in the full hospital and not had such fantastic one to one care. My MLU was also able to allow me to stay overnight to recover a little from labour and support with BF this would not have been possible in the hospital because they are so busy they discharge you in 6 hours if yo have had a normal healthy delivery.
If we have a number two I would potentially still opt for the larger hospital because the thought of a transfer etc if needed is not appealing and a stress I would like to avoid
That. said I do think there are advantages to what MLU can offer and wish there was more availability of MLU on the same site as the full on birthing unit/ consultant care. This used to be available at the same site as our local MLU but the closed all consultant/ theatre scbu and moved it to the larger hospital saying it wasn't cost effective but all that has happend is the large hospital is now always busy and burting at the seams.
Perhasps it would make sense to put more money into mat services so that you could have the experience of ML/home birth with the knowledge that all the medical bells and whistles are next door so to speak so that we don't have to weigh up the pros and cons so much when making he decisions where to have a baby.
Replies
Wow I obviously missed this thread, so very interesting to read everyone's views and experiences. I don't want a HB, strangely I actually feel like I'd be less relaxed being at home! Everyone is different - things can go wrong/ escalate quickly wherever you are, there's no way of knowing. Great thread though :-)
This thread is a very interesting read, not sure how I missed it initially. I dismissed the idea of a hb 1st time round but my birth was relatively quick & easy that I'm sure I would've been able to labour at home. Had that happened I would've been more calm, more able to 'enjoy it' by listening to the music I'd spent hours putting together. No need to listen to worrying sirens going off, I probably would've been able to get into the water much earlier & then stay in there as it would've been noticed that I was pushing with every contraction & I would've have been able to have my water birth. If I'm lucky enough to get pregnant again I'm definitely hoping to have a relaxed home birth, although, obviously, if I needed to get to a hospital I would & being only 10 mins away doesn't seem too bad when you've got 2 people's attention rather than being left alone for an hour (when we 1st arrived) or left to be prodded & have a thermometer shoved to the back of my mouth by a student midwife. I can completely understand why many people choose to give birth in hospital but I don't like the medicalised way labours & births are treated as if some mw's & dr's are in a hurry to get patients to give birth or leave them waiting when beds are short. Just my opinion.
This is a really intresting thread and I think all my thoughts on the subject have been expressed alreaddy that said I thoght I would share my experience
Where I live we had the option of the MLU which is geographically closer or slightly further away at a larger hospital with MLU on one floor and a birth centre (theatere consultants etc a floor down).
Whene discussing my options with the community midwife I opted for the larger hospital MLU as my reasoning was it was a lift ride to the medical intervention rather than an ambulance.
(My MW did push the local MLU a little as it was quiter saying more likely to get water birth etc but she was still happy for my to go to my choice.
When DIsco decided to put in an appearance H rang the hospital who told him get her to wait an hour and ring back we waited half an hour (the time to it took to put my clothes on) and rang back as we both felt my labour was progressing quickly. It was only at this point the hospital said to H they were full (in both MLU and the birthing suite) and said could I hold on a litle longer at home as labour had only started a few hours before us ringing?). H Said ok well I will ring the local MLU which we did and after a chat on the phone( well was more than that but to long to share here) we ended up at the MLU.
My care there was amazing we had one on one care from the MW (which we wouldn't have had at the larger hospital) our MW was very on the ball and as labour was progressing relatively rapidly she did a reasonable amount of heartbeat checking but the while experience was very calm. Because I had one MW all the time she realised a very short while into pushing that my waters were still intact and it was making pushing hard/ ineffectual so she popped them without one to one care it might have taken longer for this to be noticed resulting in a more tiring labour for me.
I was lucky to have an easy delivery and a healthy baby but if it hadn't been for our local unit I think we would have eiether ended up waiting to long or would have been found a corner in the full hospital and not had such fantastic one to one care. My MLU was also able to allow me to stay overnight to recover a little from labour and support with BF this would not have been possible in the hospital because they are so busy they discharge you in 6 hours if yo have had a normal healthy delivery.
If we have a number two I would potentially still opt for the larger hospital because the thought of a transfer etc if needed is not appealing and a stress I would like to avoid
That. said I do think there are advantages to what MLU can offer and wish there was more availability of MLU on the same site as the full on birthing unit/ consultant care. This used to be available at the same site as our local MLU but the closed all consultant/ theatre scbu and moved it to the larger hospital saying it wasn't cost effective but all that has happend is the large hospital is now always busy and burting at the seams.
Perhasps it would make sense to put more money into mat services so that you could have the experience of ML/home birth with the knowledge that all the medical bells and whistles are next door so to speak so that we don't have to weigh up the pros and cons so much when making he decisions where to have a baby.