Thanks for sharing your planned homebirth outcome here
Stillbirths, unfortunately, happen at any planned birthing venueWhen discussing my birth plan, my middie and I talked about what would happen in the case of a stillbirth and if we had any religious preferences etc, so we were well prepped. Our midwives also had the resuc equipment that they set up as soon as they got here. They said they could count on one hand the number of times they'd had to use it in their homebirth careers.
Homebirthing didn't give rise to your stillborn, Bec, that was going to happen - it's the skill of a midwife that will determine how soon a complication is picked up. A breech shouldn't even be a complication for a good middie.
It's important to allow private MW's to continue practicing with their qualifications because they are more up to date in their professional development than hospital midwives and are able to mentor student midwives who otherwise would never see a homebirth (and often, never see a normal labour and birth). Word of mouth recommendations are good at the moment, but will deteriorate in reliability if private MW's are stripped of their credentials. Over the years what will be the benchmark of a good 'unofficial' midwife for the freebirths women will be forced to have?
Midwives who work in with other midwives are the best option for 'risk management' because you've got collective skill and experience. Yes, it's more expensive - we can't afford it, but we did it anyway.
Bec - you can't be sure that a hospital would have been able to revive your baby with any better success, and it would be great to think that they would have. It's just not based in fact. Hospitals can claim higher perinatal morbidity rates than homebirths or homebirth transfers. Homebirth in itself is not to blame.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that us in this thread are already made more than aware of this kind of risk of birth (not just homebirth, but a risk of giving birth and carrying a child). I'm tipping that those of us in this thread are also aware of the far more plentiful risks of giving birth in a hospital if there is no clinical need for it. For some of us that awareness may have come from previous experience, for others anecdotally.
This thread is a nice haven from the barrage of "geez, you're brave" (on the mild side) to the "you are risking your child's life", "your child could die", "leave it to the doctors" attitude we cop from many angles. I would just assume that we have weighed up the risks and benefits. Your assertion that being rushed to hospital is 'likely' is vague - hospital transfer for a homebirth in Australia is low. I know a lot of homebirthers and only one had to transfer for a c-section. Her first was a c-section transfer from a birth centre. She gave it a red hot go and had an ace midwife team for her homebirth who recognised in a timely fashion that things weren't going to go to plan.
Again, thanks for telling us the outcome of your planned homebirth. Have you debriefed your experience? There's a good thread for birthing debriefs on BB
How's everyone else going? Bimboo? Tashy - congrats!!
DS still talk about the birth! He talks now about when he was born in water and assumes other babies are born peacefully at home
homebirth rocks!!
) the difference in our experience was huge, despite a decent length of labour, my bub and i were both so healthy before, during and afterwards and breastfeeding came naturally. i feel so bonded to my bub and have found that during my pregnancy, labour and postnatally with the assistance of my midwife i have learnt to listen to my instincts (finally!) 
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