Discussions with DHs re homebirth

[Bloom]

Hi All,

Another question for you all (okay a few questions): how did your DH feel about home birth when you first raised it? Did you try and convince him it was safe? does your DH think it is a joint decision where you birth?

My DH is convinced that homebirth is risky to our future babe. He is also very very squishish (i.e. fainted after giving blood, wouldn't watch me give me my IVF injections, wouldn't even watch the Dr doing the tranfer yesterday).

Any suggestions on how we can openly discussion our options????

At the moment I'm with "it's not safe". He was born premmie (well his mum chose to have him induced 2 weeks early as she was sick of being pregnant as she's had shingles and he was very very small and blue) and his most compelling argument, is that "if I had been born at home I would be dead"...

TIA for your help!

[Kitt3n]

Oh Ruth - well, i'll give you an overview of our story and maybe that will help...........

This baby wasnt planned. In fact, we were trying NOT to fall pregnant as I was terrified of having another miscarriage. We weren't using any contraceptions - was relying on charting. I wanted to have a few (maybe 6) months worth of charts to take to the FS, as I was sure taking depo a few years back had screwed me up.

Anyway - I fall pregnant! Terrified, I go back to my doc who sends me straight off to "the best of the best" obs in sydney. The ob fits me in within 2 weeks (though to see him as an FS I had to wait almost 6 months for an appointment).

DH was with me for the first visit - I was in there for about 5-10 mins. He had a quick look over me and said that "everything seems fine, we will take it from here..... which hospital do you want to birth your baby at?". I had no bloody idea WHERE - all I could think of was IF. SO I dint really feel that all my concerns were addressed (he is a lovely gentleman though).

So as we walk out to make our next appointment (not for another month, no further testing, I felt so damn helpess) they hand me the fee schedule. DH's eyes nearly fell out of his head.

Ob tells me that the hospitals birthing centre doesnt take appointments till you hit 20 weeks and that I would have to wait till then to book in. Even then I knew I didnt want a hospital birth, it would be my last resort.

So, I ploddle along to my appointments when once the obs wasnt there (OK, I understand that he has to go to birht babies, thats all good, but LET ME KNOW???!!! Each time thereafter I rang before I left work just to make sure)...... All is going OK, at thispoint kinda over having to leave work in themiddle of the day and then make up the time, especially when having to wait past your appointment time to see the ob.

Then I made DH sit down and watch the business of being born. This was a turning point for him. I strongly suggest you get your hubby to watch it! Kelly has copies for sale I believe.

We watched this just before I was due to give my very exxy payment to the ob. Really made me think! So I ditched the ob and went back to my doctor to see if he would take me on for shared care. He was fine with that. I call the birthing centre (at 20 weeks) - they are already full. But I am first on the waiting list, they say it should probably be fine, they always have someone who cancels..... hoping like mad someone else chickens out and wants drugs! LOL

Get to 29 weeks - call the birthing centre to see how we are going - nope I wont get in.

Major turning point for me here. I cant book into a hospital! DH has white collar syndrome and is sure most doctors have no idea what they are doing, especially after seeing TBOBB there is no way I would have a calm birth in hospital, he would be screaming down everyone's throats, if someone tried to cut the cord too early I know he would jump over the bed and pin them to the floor! (or he would just faint)..... NOT an ideal situation!

He knew all along that I wanted to be away from the hospital and totally respected that - so this is when we decided to interview a few homebirth MW's - As soon as the first one walked out the door he said "call the others and tell them not to bother honey - she is perfect"............. can you imagine feeling so calm and confident in your caregiver after just chatting to them for a while? Such a great feeling. We still met one more (who was almost just as awesome - we just felt more of a connection with the first, like she is kinda like us as in the type of people we are) who we have as our backup midwife. We didnt want to meet anymore as we felt so secure with the first. Never felt like that about the ob!

So now, we are all looking forward to it, DD is going to make a film and we have been showing her youtube vids of babies being born, I ask her what she thinks and she just shrugs it off and says "its just natural". DH is calm and happy because he knows about the nasty intervention rates in hospital and all else taht comes along with it (hey you 5 minute old baby, lets give you a couple of jabs!!), feels confident in our MW and knows I am much more comfortable at home - therefore much stronger mentally to birth this little on naturally!

Oh - and if you look into it - provided you have a normal, healthy low risk pregnancy, the stats show that you are much SAFER at home, in a relaxed environment, to have your baby, than in the hospital.

Wow I was going to make this brief!

Seriously - get him to watch TBOBB as your first step - it will open your eyes and make you question instead of accept...........................

GL!!!

XXX

[paradise lost]

how did your DH feel about home birth when you first raised it?

He was born at home himself but his niece had been born in hossie so he was neither up nor down.

Did you try and convince him it was safe?

Because i felt i wanted his SUPPORT and not just a lack of objection, i did show him the studies on the comparison of safety and intervention and so on. TBH i didn't try to "convince" him it was safe because the plain facts are that homebirth IS safe and offers lower intevention and associated morbidity than hospital birth. Him not believing that wouldn't make it untrue, it would make him a fool. So i would say i showed him it was safe.

does your DH think it is a joint decision where you birth?

I'm not sure what XP thought actually. I don't think this though, so it didn't really matter from my POV. I believe that the person who has the most responsibility gets to have most say in the decision. XP couldn't have made me go into hospital. He cannot say episiotomy is an acceptable risk because it's not his genitalia that will be mutilated. He cannot say narcotics are an acceptable risk because it isn't his brain and body chemistry which will be affected. He cannot say forceps are an acceptable risk because it's not him they are going to stick them inside. He cannot say c-section is an acceptable risk because it is not his abdominal muscles which will be cut apart, nor necessarily his future fertility and health at risk. I do accept that a man stands to lose his child if the birth goes wrong, just as the woman does, but nature didn't give him any choice in where to grow that baby - it was gonna be in one woman or another. I basically told XP i wanted to birth at home and if he wanted a hospital birth he needed to work out a way that HE could do the pushing because i wasn't pushing anywhere near one. To me birthing is ultimately the woman's responsibility and thus the choices should be hers. Her partner's job is to support her. Before i had seen babies born i felt a baby was an equally shared gift and responsibility, but it isn't. When they are cutting a woman's vagina her husband doesn't feel a thing. When it comes time to push no one else pushes. A person cannot try to claim responsibility for something they cannot actually take responsibility for.

My DH is convinced that homebirth is risky to our future babe. He is also very very squishish (i.e. fainted after giving blood, wouldn't watch me give me my IVF injections, wouldn't even watch the Dr doing the tranfer yesterday).

He needs to do some research. Homebirth is safer than hospital birth if you take into account injury, and as safe if you only look at mortality. That's not the view of a homebirthing nut, it's evidence-based medical fact. Him being squeamish makes no odds, whether he faints on the labour ward or on your bathroom floor, the midwives will check briefly that he's breathing and step over him to do their jobs. Some kinds of squeamishness are tough to overcome but if he wants a baby he's going to have to. What will he do if his newborn is sick or injured? Faint? THat's not going to cut it. There is no get-out clause with parenting, you need to do what needs doing, however it makes you feel. Now would be an excellent time for him to face up to his squeamishness.

Any suggestions on how we can openly discussion our options????

I would recommend BOBB and some books (birth your way, kitzinger; spiritual midwifery, gaskin). BOBB might be better because it is a passive act to watch a film, whereas he'd need to have some level of interest to read a book.

At the moment I'm with "it's not safe". He was born premmie (well his mum chose to have him induced 2 weeks early as she was sick of being pregnant as she's had shingles and he was very very small and blue) and his most compelling argument, is that "if I had been born at home I would be dead"...

He would not have been born at home for at least 2 more weeks, probably more. No one would think to induce a woman in the home setting. If you go into labour prematurely the midwife will call you an ambulance. Point out to him that far more babies die in hospital due to prematurity than at home due to homebirthing. Previously unsuspected prematurity is a KNOWN risk of elective c-sections.

I have probably come over like a neo-nazi-birthing-feminist-harridan, and i probably am one. I have known several anti-homebirth fathers "won over" by the experience of seeing their babe born at home. I have only read stories of disappointment from women whose hearts told them to homebirth but they went with their partner's wishes and birthed in hospital. Basically wherever you decide to give birth you need to be as happy as possible with the decision going in, because one the babe is OUT the regrets will be yours and yours alone.

Bx

[Cricket]

Hi! We have birthed two babies at hospital and one at home, so far. DH was a little concerned at first when I raised the idea, partly because we were living about 25 min away from the hospital when I first suggested it (when pg with DD2). I was content that time to give birth at the hospital, since I had a decent experience with DD1. But we moved when I was pg with DD3, and were closer to the hospital, and so I brought it up again. I had done some research (online) and showed that to him, and he was totally fine with it. He trusted my decision, and figured I wouldn't want to risk our baby any more than he would, and he could see what I was saying made sense. (I have a lovely DH )
I'd recommend reading the articles here on BB about homebirth, and also those about the interventions which are so common in hospitals (induction, epidural, episiotomy, c-section, etc.) The research is showing more and more that the "traditional" method of childbirth is not producing good results for women or babies. Of course, some women in exceptional circumstances have been saved by necessary intervention in the hospital. It is a wonderful resource to have available for those situations, but in a normal, healthy pregnancy, the hospital is simply not necessary.
I've got to run, but I will visit this thread again to add more.
All the best!

[Cricket]

OK, I'll try to add a few more thoughts here.
Does your DH realize that the doctor nearly killed him at birth? Induction in that situation, from what you have said, sounds completely uncalled for. Induction, according to hospital guidelines, is meant for life-threatening situations. Apparently very few doctors have read the hospital guidelines. It was because he wasn't ready to come out that he almost died. If his mother had planned a homebirth, the chances are much greater that he would have been born when he was ready to come out!
At the hospital, there is often a mindset of control. They are in control. They determine how long labour should take, and what your role is during labour, and what will and will not be allowed as far as how and where you labour, and what you can or cannot eat, and they will tell you what is good for you.
Generally, I don't think anyone at the hospital is "out to get you" They want to do their jobs. They want a healthy baby and mother too. But the practices of many hospitals are not keeping up with the research. The research shows that you shouldn't mess with labour. You shouldn't keep a labouring woman in bed. You shouldn't strap her down to all kinds of monitors. You shouldn't stress her unnecessarily with time limits and deadlines. A healthy woman carrying a healthy baby should be left alone, so to speak. (not truly alone - she needs her support people.) But as far as procedures go, she should be left. Periodic checking of the fetal heart rate should suffice. Vaginal exams are unnecessary for the most part, although personally, I liked to hear what progress I was making in actual numbers. A woman in labour should be comfortable in her environment, active, eating and drinking lightly, and surrounded by people she knows and trusts. Not whoever happens to be on call that night.
The WHO recommends a c-section rate of 10%. That's for all births, including all health situations for mother and baby. MANY hospitals have a c-section rate of 25% or higher. I've even heard of some at 40%. So something is going wrong. Either they don't know how to properly treat labouring women, or they are inducing too many women who are not ready to give birth, or something. But I would not be comfortable going in to the hospital knowing that I had a 1 in 4 chance of coming out of there with a great wound across my belly for no good reason!
Google some stats on homebirth. As Hoobley mentioned, the research shows that it is just as safe if not safer than a hospital birth. See what you can find from Holland - they have a very high rate of homebirths, and one of the best maternal-infant outcome rates in the world.
A birth is a family event in which medical professionals help, not a medical procedure that the family may watch.
Read through the birth stories, and see for yourself how many mothers have regrets about their hospital births, and how many have regrets about their homebirths.
All the best!

[Tobily]

I guess everyone else has already addressed the safety issues so I just wanted to say something about the "squeamish factor"

Trust me. Your DP is going to see a heck of a lot less blood and gore in a homebirth than he will see in hospital.

Hospitals like to have bright lights on so they can see what they are doing for one thing...which means you get to see everything in technicolour. Homebirths are usually low light affairs

Secondly, the things that cause lots of body fluids, blood etc to occur during birth are breaking waters, IV's, syntocinon, episiotomies (oh this is a BIG one on the blood factor) and, if you're unlucky and lose the hospital lotto - caesareans.

ALL of these things are rare or non existent in homebirth and relatively common in hospital birth. And obviously caesareans don't happen at home

[annsam]

Mine wasn't overly thrilled except Im a doula and he hears the horror stories. I made him watch the business of being born which he found interesting and just kept dropping statistics in there every now and again for a few weeks to let them sink in. Hes now very excited about the idea. He is meeting my midwife on Monday so she can also answer any questions hes got. It took a year to conceive though so I had a long time to plant the seed.

As for body fluids, hes seen it all before. His concern is safety (as most mens is) so as he had the concerns we addressed them with facts.

[Bloom]

Wow everyone! Thank you so much for all the time and considerable thoughts you've put into your responses. Your suggestions have all be very very valuable! I feel we are making some headway... and I'm not pregnant yet, so I still have time to work on him.

[sunshine_sieben]

So, what does the little note in your siggie mean? 5w 1d?
By the way, if your DH is squeamish, I can only recommend a water birth. Not only did it do WONDERS for me in regards to pain management, but it also has the added bonus that the baby comes out clean - lol.
And Tobily is right. A homebirth will tend to have less emphasis on the "gore factor". Less light. And probably have a much more "serene" feel to it.

All the best!

Saša

[lilmisshavachat]

Just a quick explanation to sunshine_sieben the 5w 1d is how old ruth08's embryo was when it miscarried and took flight to the heavens..

Hi Ruth..
It's Dee from last Saturdays breakfast.. I had no idea you were interested in a homebirth (you're probably lucky) cause I've decided that is what I want as well and would have talked your ear off... So Ruth to the discussion at hand, I think it's awsome that you are considering your options already... I told my DH that I want a homebirth and he was kinda "ok dear.. whatever you want" but only because he knows how much reading and research i've done.. I have watched the BOBB quite a few times but he isn't interested and I have told him that if he wants to argue with me about any safety issues or other concerns he has he should probably research his side of the argument first before getting into that debate and we both know that if he researches he will find out that homebirth is as safe if not safer that hospital birth.. He won't research it though cause i'm a lucky little chicken (in some instances) that DH leaves these things up to me..

It is very difficult having a conversation with someone who feels that the hospital system saved their's or their own child's life about it being safer to birth at home as they don't wish to know that it was probably the Dr's intervention that caused the problem in the first place...I know people like that...and I have plenty of people I know that think i'm mad and that is fine..

Something that might help with DH's squeamishness is maybe looking into a Doula or student doula who can support DH while you midwife supports you.. Good luck with conceiving and I hope we can catch up for another breakfast soon.. Take care sweetie...
Dee

[BekZ]

I mentioned homebirth to my DH just yesterday and he said absolutely no straight away..