Home births a major risk- *DEBATE today on the herald sun website*

[mybabyboy]

I, like alot of people wanted a natural birth. At my local hospital they have a team of midwives called, 'the birth centre team' who largely support the women throghout their pregnancy and delivery in the most natural way. To be a part of this team you need to apply quite early in your pregnancy to secure a position. The birth centre is part of the major hopsital so that if something god forbid was to happen or the mother required intervention such as analgesia, then she could easily transfer to the delivery suite. The pregnant mother needs to be of an extreemly low risk category, therfore all scans and ante natal testing must have been completed and passed. AS I did.
HOwever our darkest day had arrived with the birth of our son. 10 mins after he arrived he was diagnosed with a diaphramatic hernia, something that can only be diagnosed with x ray, something that could not be done at home. The only way the dr's knew something was wrong was because he had resipiratory distress, and the treatment for that is positive airway pressure, so even if it was avail at home, (and it's not) It is not the treatment for a diaphramatic hernia. Initially this made his condition worse. All i can only say is that , if this was your birth story from home then your outcome would be very different to mine. No amount of hypnotherapy, accupunture or all the positive thinking in the world could have diagnosed or help your innocent child
There is always the chance that something can go wrong, no matter how great and low risk your pregnancy has been deemed! Just as mine was. PLease, dont risk your childs life!
I will thank the professionals at that hospital every day for the rest of my life, and then still will never forget how they saved my sons life. My son is a happy healthy 4 and a half month old, and i cherrish every day.

[Schmickers]

mybabyboy, that is such a sad story. I am glad that your boy has had such a good outcome.

For all those that are wondering, diaphragmatic hernias actually can be diagnosed prenatally. They are detected on the routine ultrasound that is offered to all pregnant women. In some cases, they can even operate before the baby is born to repair one! I agree that having a baby with a diaphragmatic hernia is a very good reason not to have a homebirth. And even if someone were unlucky enough to have a baby with an undiagnosed diphragmatic hernia, it is unlikely it would have been diagnosed and x-rayed in 10 minutes - the 10-minute Apgar score hasn't even been completed at that point.

Positive airway pressure, using a bag valve and mask, is readily available in the home setting, and all reputable independent midwives carry resuscitation equipment and portable oxygen with them. While it may not look like the fancy equipment in hospital, it is the same and does the same job.

Like it or not, homebirth is safe. This pattern - from the media, or from the general public - of people decrying homebirth as "unsafe" and then justifying their beliefs with dubious anecdotal evidence or implausible medical horror stories - has to stop. If you don't agree with our decision, then that is okay, but don't try and portray us as unsafe when the evidence is overwhelmingly in our favour.

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

I think that the wrong end of the equation is being looked at. If I were a politician or a medical 'professional', I would be asking myself WHY so many women are apparently willing to take these risks. Not that I think homebirth is any riskier than hospital, I am pro-homebirth myself, just talking from their perspective. So, rather than spending god knows how much money on ridiculous studies that are only thrown out anyway - why not spend some money finding out why birthing women are so unhappy with the hospital birthing environment? If their focus truly is on women and babies, as opposed to money and power, they need to be asking what THEY need to do to bring back consumer faith. If they wanna treat birth as a business, they need to treat their practice as a business as well.

For myself, the reason I would prefer a homebirth is simply for control. I want to be able to control my environment. I want to be able to control who is allowed into MY environment. I imagine most women would feel the same. So when all I hear from my friends are horror stories of birth rape and trauma, and when all I experience at doctors appointments is condescension and apathy - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that I'm not going to want to birth in a hospital.

[meow]

mybabyboy, that is such a sad story. I am glad that your boy has had such a good outcome.

For all those that are wondering, diaphragmatic hernias actually can be diagnosed prenatally. They are detected on the routine ultrasound that is offered to all pregnant women. In some cases, they can even operate before the baby is born to repair one! I agree that having a baby with a diaphragmatic hernia is a very good reason not to have a homebirth. And even if someone were unlucky enough to have a baby with an undiagnosed diphragmatic hernia, it is unlikely it would have been diagnosed and x-rayed in 10 minutes - the 10-minute Apgar score hasn't even been completed at that point.

Positive airway pressure, using a bag valve and mask, is readily available in the home setting, and all reputable independent midwives carry resuscitation equipment and portable oxygen with them. While it may not look like the fancy equipment in hospital, it is the same and does the same job.

Like it or not, homebirth is safe. This pattern - from the media, or from the general public - of people decrying homebirth as "unsafe" and then justifying their beliefs with dubious anecdotal evidence or implausible medical horror stories - has to stop. If you don't agree with our decision, then that is okay, but don't try and portray us as unsafe when the evidence is overwhelmingly in our favour.

Thank you for offering correct information. It seems home birth becomes the target of much misinformation and its often portrayed as a woman on her own birthing under a tree. While I'm all for women birthing in that way if that's what they choose, home birth generally refers to a birth attended by a qualified midwife. A birth-skilled medical professional IS in attendence and resus is possible while transferring to hospital if required.

I do not for a second feel that I am risking mine or my child's health by staying at home for their birth. Rather, I feel I am protecting us from medical intervention that could cause a greater risk of health complications, while also offering our entire family an opportunity to experience one of the most magical moments of a family's life in a healthy, loving and emotionally safe way.

[blessedatlast]

While HB is not for me, I do agree with a PPer who said that making HB illegal will just drive it more underground, and prevent woman who choose the path of a home birth from getting necessary treatment if something does go wrong

And if something did go wrong, those parents would need all the support they could get without having idiots implying it was their fault and it could have been prevented..

[Little Chicken]

For all those that are wondering, diaphragmatic hernias actually can be diagnosed prenatally. They are detected on the routine ultrasound that is offered to all pregnant women. In some cases, they can even operate before the baby is born to repair one! I agree that having a baby with a diaphragmatic hernia is a very good reason not to have a homebirth. And even if someone were unlucky enough to have a baby with an undiagnosed diphragmatic hernia, it is unlikely it would have been diagnosed and x-rayed in 10 minutes - the 10-minute Apgar score hasn't even been completed at that point.

Positive airway pressure, using a bag valve and mask, is readily available in the home setting, and all reputable independent midwives carry resuscitation equipment and portable oxygen with them. While it may not look like the fancy equipment in hospital, it is the same and does the same job.

.

To be fair to the poster, an experienced peadiatrician or neonatologist can generally diagnose a diaphragmatic hernia quite quickly with an xray used for confirmation. Yes bag and mask ventilation can be uaed, but it is extremely difficult and not generally very effective on these babies and intubation is required ASAP. Most of the time this condition is picked up antenatally from scans, very rarely fixed in utero, but, again, can be missed on scans if the lesion is very small at the time or in a certain position.

This is not a reason to ban homebirth at all, or really a reason not to consider one as this condition is so rare. It is just unfortunate that this is one of those conditions where having a bag and mask and oxygen may not be enough.

I do agree with berenice that maybe we need to look at just why women are not happy with the hospital system as well as advocating to keep the homebirthing system.

[Jennifer13]

It seems some people confuse having a home birth with shunning all medical assistance, pre and post natally. We are planning on a homebirth for #2, where for #1 we had a scheduled c/s because of placenta praevia. This was picked up at u/s at 20 weeks, then again at 32 and 37 weeks. I fully intend to take advantage of the same level of prenatal care (probably better, because I'll have a midwife who personally visits me at home throughout the pg), complete with blood tests, GD tests and u/s. If there's something that means I or the baby will need medical assistance beyond what can be offered at home then I'll book myself into the hospital (which I was very happy with for #1, btw, so it's not always a choice following a traumatic experience).

I just will not take the short drive to hospital during or after labour unless something happens to cause my midwife to think it's necessary. As I've pointed out to DP, if I was labouring in the hospital birth suites and something went wrong, it's not like they whip the ob and anaesthetist into your suite and perform a c/s right there. Everyone needs to be called in and you have to be prepped and taken to surgery. I may as well be spending the 10 mins riding over in an ambulance (with everyone getting ready at the other end anyway) as waiting in the corridors...

Plus, there's the fact that I'm far less likely to have something go wrong during labour while I'm comfortable at home without pressure and intervention, so less likely to need that emergency c/s anyway.

[Cassius2]

I can totally vouch for the effectiveness of transfer to hospital for extreme emergencies. recently a friend's baby was born with an incredibly rare condition that meant that he cannot breathe/swallow without full assistance. he was born at home with two midwives in attendance and they started performing resus on him while an ambulance was called. bubs was safely transferred to hospital and the staff were ready to immediately assist on arrival. the hospital made it clear from the get go that him being born at home had NO adverse affect on his outcome or the timing of assistance. the hospital persisted with the same resus methods as the midwives and ambos had been doing and in fact it is only 2 WEEKS later that they have worked out how to stabilise him and keep him breathing (with full assistance). his being born at home HAD NOTHING to do with his outcome and made NO difference to his care and assistance in the immediate minutes after birth.
In fact, now that i have seen just how effective midwives/ambos and the hospital can be when working together in such an extreme situation only hardens my resolve that HB is a safe, valid and valuable option for women and their families, and also reassures me that even in extreme cases like this one can be handled and managed with amazing efficacy.

not for a minute have i ever believed that a family that chooses to birth their baby at home is ignorant of adverse outcomes (whether due to birth process or baby's development). i guess this however, is a matter of education for those that have not had experience with a homebirth setting or research?