Why Homebirth?
“So which hospital do you think you want to go to to have the baby?” he said.
“Erm I think I want a homebirth” – husband faints on the floor (only joking he knows me too well by now he was probably fully expecting this) but I can’t say he was fully on board to begin with, well who would be it’s not exactly the norm…
We think home birth we may think hippy, we think unsafe we think WHY??!! Just go to hospital where the doctors and nurses and midwives are.
Even before I was pregnant, if I ever had a baby I always fancied the idea of a homebirth. It’s no surprise around here I have had a chronic illness since being 8 years old so I have had my fair share of hospitals and doctors. I just knew I didn’t want to bring my baby into that environment which to me and my memories is a negative space. I feel it’s a very personal choice on where you decide to birth your baby. I have a lot of negative connotations with hospitals from over the years and I just felt I would be much calmer at home.
The theory goes, a womans waters break, she’s doing nicely and progressing well, then she calls up the hospital and they say “yes come in” so her partner takes her in and suddenly she stops progressing, the labour halts and things drastically slow down. She’s gone into a foreign environment, loud and bright lights with lots of people examining her, in a space she doesn’t know… talk about fight or flight, all of her autonomic nervous system is heightened and the last thing her body wants to do is birth a baby.
Whereas at home, it’s your space, you know it, you’re familiar with it and you can watch Friends on Netflix, drink cups of tea and when the time comes jump in the pool to birth.
Now I am absolutely not disregarding hospitals at all for birthing, as I say it is such an individual choice. We now also have two birthing centres near where we live and I was abit tempted, they are in hospitals but there are no doctors if you need them, you would have to be transferred to the delivery ward and there are no drugs but it is in a hospital setting, but I still clung onto my idea of a homebirth.
So needless to say, there will be no drugs available to me at home (maybe a paracetamol) but that’s where hypnobirthing comes in (stay tunes folks). I will have a midwife with me and I will be their only priority. But to be honest when you do hypnobirthing it will me my husband and I who birth the baby not the midwives, we have decided to go for as little intervention as possible (unless in an emergency obviously). Every midwife I mention hypnobirthing and home birth to they love it, to them it is pure midwifery, a woman birthing her baby in her natural environment.
We are obviously not being naïve about this, in an emergency we will be going straight to hospital but for now I’ve been given the OK by two consultants that I am low risk and a homebirth should be absolutely fine.
My husband now just needs to collect the pool, practice filling it up in record time, get those protein snacks at the ready and candles, diffuser with lavender and wait for this little one to make an appearance.
We really are praying we get the birth we are hoping for, to be able to give birth then go and get in my own bed with my baby sounds like pure bliss.
I will be speaking about this more in the coming couple of months, I am tempted to post my birth plan on here once I’ve finished it, let me know if you would be interested, it is quite different to usual.
The way I view with my pregnancy, birth and once the baby is here is to stay close to nature, that’s always been my ethos. If my dog had puppies she would go off into a quiet corner and get on with it like every other animal, when did we make birth so clinical? We are women who can grow babies so of course we can birth them it’s simple nature. I might eat my words but for now that’s what we are aiming for fingers crossed we get it.