Hi Again,

Yes I do realise all about homebirths etc (if you recall Trish one of our belly buddies had her home waterbirth, so we ALL felt like we were a part of that one ) I am also of the understanding that homebirths are not applicable for all people. I believe that if you are in any way high risk, these are not applicable for you, nor are you able to if you go too late, or too early (very small window of opportunity of about 4 weeks I think? Also first time mums aren't allowed to have them. And I dont think you are allowed to VBAC at a homebirth?
Now I'm sure this all varies according to the private midwife you choose (there may be some variances to the above) but it does suggest to me (and many other parents I have had this exact conversation with) that the stats seem to be slightly stacked when referring to homebirths. After all, these are the same births that would more than likely have gone to plan in hospital as well. Of course there aren't many complications with home births when you are choosing the optimum case to study. So very likely to get great stats for homebirthing, which is fine, but for a scientific mind like mine, we are trained to look beyond the numbers.

When the CTG started to fail during my labour (I was on my side to try to aid Jenna to turn) they inserted a scalp probe which was far more accurate (even though it felt TOTALLY queer :shock: ) . This told them exactly when her heart was having a few problems, particularly when they tried to turn her by hand as I was pushing through my few and far between contractions. All these things for me pointed to a healthier bub through medical intervention.

So all power to you who want to do it au naturale (ie no medical input or monitoring, or hospital checkups, or scans etc) but if ANYTHING is happening to my body that involved my safety, I would prefer to have medically trained people ie midwives, drs and hospital staff, on hand.
I think the medical advances in the last 50 or so years have improved things in leaps and bounds. I agree that some of them add to complications in labour in particular, but even after I was very well informed for my labour, I still chose to go with medical intervention.
Its just about balancing what you believe with how you feel at the time. The only thing I would read up more on this time around was how to prevent OP babies (ARGH!!!! NEVER AGAIN!!!) and what the risks are associated with assisted birth - from a very impartial survey I might add. I know that stats can be very misleading until we know exactly what the conditions and sampling type was.

Anyway - not an argument, just a gentle prod in the favour of the medical profession, and all the good things we get out of it Like those scans. As my mum said when she watched Jenna wrigging on our TV set - we never had things like that when I was pregnant with you lot. And I look at my very good friend who has just had a baby at 32 weeks in Houston. Her placenta ruptured, and because of the medical profession she didn't lose her baby, and she is now able to express and feed through a nasal tube, and I look at two ofmy good friends who have their babies after losses, and then cervical stitches and c/s. I think there is an awful lot of good that some OB/GYNs do that maybe unheralded.
Lets put ourselves in these mums shoes and give the medical profession a jolly good pat on the back