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Homebirth controversy

12467…11

Comments

  • #92
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 24,080 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Morag wrote: »
    My grandmother's were a lot further away and yet they managed between them to have 16 kids who were born at home.

    My Grandmother had 8 children and one of them died in childbirth.

    Is 1 death out of 9 an acceptable mortality rate? it used to be, thankfully, we've moved on and improved our maternity services and massively improved survival outcomes.

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  • #93
    Sleepy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 25,000 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    Morag wrote: »
    The guidelines only changed in 2008 up until then she would have had a HBAC with the midwife of her choice. So she is challenging it as is her right to do so.
    I agree it's her right to take the case. Will you agree with the court when they tell her she has no right to force the HSE to change the guidelines?

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  • #94
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 24,080 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Ms2011 wrote: »
    Really? I disagree to a point. I had a great pregnancy & was looking forward to a natural birth, after a failed induction I ended up with an emergancy section. I can't tell you what a knock to my confidence that was even to the point where I felt like too much of a failure to breast feed.
    Everyone's attitude was 'you should be grateful you have a healthy child' & don't get me wrong I'll be eternally grateful for that. But in hindsight I had no idea how the birth would effect me even now nearly a year & a half on.

    I don't mean to sound dismissive and of course I do not know you or your circumstances, but how can you be sure that you would have felt differently if you had a natural birth?

    The first years as a parent are extremely stessful and all kinds of wierd emotions can surface.

    I know from my wife's experience of being pregnant with our children that there is a lot of pressure from other women to 'experience childbirth' and to resist taking pain relief in favour of a 'natural delivery'

    Is this part of what you are feeling?

    If you could go back in time and switch your emergency delivery for a natural delivery in exchange for a 99% chance that your baby was born healthy but a 1% chance of losing the baby, would you choose to take that risk now?

    Ban billionaires



  • #95
    MurdyWurdy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,043 ✭✭✭MurdyWurdy


    Morag wrote: »
    My grandmother's were a lot further away and yet they managed between them to have 16 kids who were born at home.

    Had she had a c section for any of her previous deliveries though? That's the issue here, that she's at risk for uterine rupture due to the c section. How likely that is, I don't know but the docs obviously think it's enough of a risk to prefer her to be in hospital.

    There's been a few negative comments on midwifes here, I cannot speak highly enough of the care I received from midwifes, who I saw for most of my pregnancy instead of seeing a consultant. They were fantastic. I still needed the assistance of a doctor when I gave birth though, my baby's heart rate dropped to half the rate it should be and I'm eternally grateful I was in the hospital where we received the assistance we needed promptly to have a healthy baby.

    I agree that every woman should have the choice in the kind of delivery and I know it can affect people greatly if they don't get the labour they wanted/expected but in my opinion there does come a time when you have to think about the baby, who does not have a choice in the matter.


  • #96
    Morag
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 8,450 ✭✭✭Morag


    Sleepy wrote: »
    I agree it's her right to take the case. Will you agree with the court when they tell her she has no right to force the HSE to change the guidelines?

    Where it gets interesting is the HSE are going to use the 8th amendment as they did the last time a woman disagreed with them when they sought a court order to force her to have a c section.


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  • #97
    kunst nugget
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,375 ✭✭✭✭kunst nugget


    MurdyWurdy wrote: »
    Had she had a c section for any of her previous deliveries though?

    If it was all home births I imagine not. Also in good old Catholic Ireland, you would have probably gotten a symphysiotomy instead to make sure you kept popping the babbies out.


  • #98
    Stone Deaf 4evr
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,000 ✭✭✭Stone Deaf 4evr


    Having been present in the delivery ward for the birth of my two daughters, I can hand on heart say that I never felt so concerned for the safety of my wife than I did on those days. regardless of the hippy dippy bullsh1t about the "miracle" of childbirth, it is a hugely traumatic experience for the human body to go under. I was glad to know that an entire surgical team was on standby should anything have gone astray.

    In my wifes case, the labour was really long, and at the end there was a chance that she would require a ceasarian section. what happens in the case of a homebirth? not being smart - I genuinely would like to know.


  • #99
    kunst nugget
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,375 ✭✭✭✭kunst nugget


    Akrasia wrote: »
    I don't mean to sound dismissive and of course I do not know you or your circumstances, but how can you be sure that you would have felt differently if you had a natural birth?

    The first years as a parent are extremely stessful and all kinds of wierd emotions can surface.

    I know from my wife's experience of being pregnant with our children that there is a lot of pressure from other women to 'experience childbirth' and to resist taking pain relief in favour of a 'natural delivery'

    Is this part of what you are feeling?

    If you could go back in time and switch your emergency delivery for a natural delivery in exchange for a 99% chance that your baby was born healthy but a 1% chance of losing the baby, would you choose to take that risk now?

    Tbf, trying to get the poster to answer some rhetorical question of chance is not going to help make her feel better about the experience.

    A friend of my wife, who happens to be a nurse, was going to have a natural home birth when very serious complications arose which meant she was rushed to hospital and had an emergency cesarian. Although everything was fine in the end she was left traumatised by the event. So much so that she required counseling.

    Childbirth is an everyday occurrence but when it goes wrong it can be extremely stressful and have a lasting, traumatic effect on a person. If a person develops post natal depression along with this it can take a long while to make it out the other side.


  • #100
    kunst nugget
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,375 ✭✭✭✭kunst nugget


    josip wrote: »
    Isn't it amazing how everyone alive today managed to survive birth in all sorts of primitive conditions...

    What about all the people that didn't make it?


  • #101
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 26,219 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    kunst nugget wrote: »
    Tbf, trying to get the poster to answer some rhetorical question of chance is not going to help make her feel better about the experience.

    A friend of my wife, who happens to be a nurse, was going to have a natural home birth when very serious complications arose which meant she was rushed to hospital and had an emergency cesarian. Although everything was fine in the end she was left traumatised by the event. So much so that she required counseling.

    Childbirth is an everyday occurrence but when it goes wrong it can be extremely stressful and have a lasting, traumatic effect on a person. If a person develops post natal depression along with this it can take a long while to make it out the other side.

    I'm starting to think that pre-birth counselling to help women develop realistic expectations might be a good idea. There seems to be an ideal that can be devastating to fail to live up to.

    No one should feel inadequate because of a medical emergency, but it seems quite common from this thread.


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  • #102
    josip
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 16,062 ✭✭✭✭josip


    kunst nugget wrote: »
    What about all the people that didn't make it?
    I didn't want to put in a :rolleyes: in the original post; thought it might be a bit strong.
    So I left a few dots ... as a hint

    To quote Bill Bryson
    “Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.”


  • #103
    padd b1975
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,910 ✭✭✭✭padd b1975


    Frank Black wrote: »
    Sorry, stopped reading after 'vaginal'.
    Interesting.

    That's when I increased my font size.:cool:


  • #104
    bringupthebook
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 66 ✭✭bringupthebook


    I think parents-to-be these days have so much information at their fingertips that dare I say it they can begin to believe that they know it all when it comes to giving birth. I'm guilty myself of reading too much online info, or visiting pregnancy forums to have had a good idea of what the birth was going to be like. It was of course nothing like that. I have also looked into home births etc but I dont think I would ever dismiss information or advice given to me by professionals.


    I didnt have the birth i expected - far from it - but im big enough to move on and enjoy parenthood and look after my litte baby.


  • #105
    seamus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 68,173 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    Sleepy wrote: »
    i.e. if she can find someone to act in this capacity, she should be allowed to hire them once she's prepared to indemnify them against any civil legal actions in advance of the birth. Let's face it, a qualified but silly midwife is better than no midwife at all.
    But if she can find someone to act in this capacity, that person will effectively end their career by breaching the guidelines - ignoring the prosecution mentioned.

    This is the thing. The only way around it is to have one set of guidelines for private midwives, and another set for public ones.
    In any other industry that can be OK. But for medicine that's insanity.
    Morag wrote: »
    My grandmother's were a lot further away and yet they managed between them to have 16 kids who were born at home.
    That's a variation on the appeal to tradition fallacy tbh. We also also drove around in cars with no seatbelts and shared sitting rooms with chain smokers, and look, we're still alive.
    Something working out fine for the individual is irrelevant in the overall context. In 1944 the infant mortality rate was 80 per 1,000. 8%. Now it's 3 per 1,000 - 0.33%.

    So clearly there's a managed birth is far preferable to an unmanaged one, and while I would totally agree that Irish maternity hospitals all too easily treat pregnant women as machines on a production line, that doesn't mean that we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater and go for home births against medical advice. A happy medium is reachable, but this woman for whatever reason doesn't see it that way and wants the birth her way regardless of whether it's the best option.


  • #106
    kunst nugget
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,375 ✭✭✭✭kunst nugget


    bringupthebook wrote: »
    I didnt have the birth i expected - far from it - but im big enough to move on and enjoy parenthood and look after my litte baby.

    People react differently to situations and some handle them better than others. I don't think it's really about whether you're 'big enough' or not.


  • #107
    MurdyWurdy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,043 ✭✭✭MurdyWurdy


    Candie wrote: »
    I'm starting to think that pre-birth counselling to help women develop realistic expectations might be a good idea. There seems to be an ideal that can be devastating to fail to live up to.

    No one should feel inadequate because of a medical emergency, but it seems quite common from this thread.

    I agree with this completely. t seems quite common from my knowing other pregnant women as well. So many women want a natural birth and get very upset when things don't turn out that way. We were even warned about it in our antenatal classes. The midwife said 20% of first time mothers need a c section and it's best to prepare yourself for that - she said it's common for women to get PND because they feel like they failed by having a c section and/or pain relief. Even among women I know their take on their labours is interesting. I had an epidural and then ended up needing a ventouse delivery. I was fine with this and didn't suffer any ill effects, emotionally or physically afterwards. I had no expectations going into the labour, I was willing to go with the flow and do what the professionals thought was necessary. I'm not an expert on childbirth despite how much reading I did.

    I know another woman who had the same type of labour who originally wanted a natural birth. She said she "had" to have an epidural and then a ventouse which she didn't want. I found the use of the word "had"" in had to have an epidural strange, she wasn't forced, she just couldn't cope with the pain and at the time decided she needed it. She said she feels like a failure now and is a bit traumatised. The just seems crazy to me - why are women putting this much pressure on themselves? It's even noticeable in the media reporting of the royal baby - talking about how Kate Middleton had no pain relief and was into hypnobirthing as if she is some sort of martyr we should all aspire to be. How is that helpful for women that do want pain relief or don't get a natural birth?


  • #108
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 26,219 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Morag wrote: »
    Where it gets interesting is the HSE are going to use the 8th amendment as they did the last time a woman disagreed with them when they sought a court order to force her to have a c section.


    And if I recall correctly it was the right call. There were serious risks to both the mother and the baby, and while she's entitled to put herself at risk if she wants too, she doesn't have the right to risk damage or death to the baby. I believe that mother underwent the procedure without being compelled in the end.

    One of the problems with this stage in pregnancy is that there's more than what the mother wants at stake, although every possible reasonable effort should be made to respect her wishes.

    A womans choice should come first, but when there is a viable child who has not yet been born, and that childs right to a safe entrance into the world is being disregarded for the mothers preference, something is very wrong.

    We have many known cases of children suffering and dying because their parents eschew medicine in favour of homeopathy or other quackery, and letting someone decide that 'their experience' is more important than their childs safety is ignorance and negligence on the same scale.

    If I had to prioritise an adult womans experience vs a helpless childs safety, I would be a very bad human being if I didn't back up the kid who can't speak for itself.


  • #109
    keithclancy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,157 ✭✭✭keithclancy


    MurdyWurdy wrote: »
    Had she had a c section for any of her previous deliveries though? That's the issue here, that she's at risk for uterine rupture due to the c section. How likely that is, I don't know but the docs obviously think it's enough of a risk to prefer her to be in hospital.

    There's been a few negative comments on midwifes here, I cannot speak highly enough of the care I received from midwifes, who I saw for most of my pregnancy instead of seeing a consultant. They were fantastic. I still needed the assistance of a doctor when I gave birth though, my baby's heart rate dropped to half the rate it should be and I'm eternally grateful I was in the hospital where we received the assistance we needed promptly to have a healthy baby.

    I agree that every woman should have the choice in the kind of delivery and I know it can affect people greatly if they don't get the labour they wanted/expected but in my opinion there does come a time when you have to think about the baby, who does not have a choice in the matter.

    I think you just described the Dutch System, where 20% of all births are at home.

    There was a big study on it already:

    http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3263
    Conclusions: Low risk women in primary care at the onset of labour with planned home birth had lower rates of severe acute maternal morbidity, postpartum haemorrhage, and manual removal of placenta than those with planned hospital birth. For parous women these differences were statistically significant. Absolute risks were small in both groups. There was no evidence that planned home birth among low risk women leads to an increased risk of severe adverse maternal outcomes in a maternity care system with well trained midwives and a good referral and transportation system.

    Also:
    In the Netherlands, midwives in primary care provide care to low risk women. These are women with a singleton pregnancy of a fetus in cephalic presentation who do not have any medical or obstetric risk factors that are an indication for secondary care, such as previous caesarean section, and who start labour spontaneously between 37 and 42 weeks.


  • #110
    Stavro Mueller
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,673 ✭✭✭Stavro Mueller


    One of my uncles suffered brain damage at birth because the midwife fecked up. Would the same thing have happened if he'd been born in hospital? Who knows? The experience was enough to make my grandmother go into hospital to have her kids after that. That's telling in itself I think.


  • #111
    keithclancy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,157 ✭✭✭keithclancy


    cymbaline wrote: »
    One of my uncles suffered brain damage at birth because the midwife fecked up. Would the same thing have happened if he'd been born in hospital? Who knows? The experience was enough to make my grandmother go into hospital to have her kids after that. That's telling in itself I think.

    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/girl-8-injured-during-hospital-birth-gets-settlement-of-1-4-million-1.1370202

    http://www.sinnottsolicitors.ie/news/boy-wins-e1-6-compensation-interim-payment-from-hse.html

    http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=19006

    http://www.thejournal.ie/hse-medical-negligence-hospitals-injuries-884530-Apr2013/

    I wouldn't say a hospital is any safer tbh.


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  • #112
    pwurple
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,132 ✭✭✭✭pwurple


    Morag wrote: »
    My grandmother's were a lot further away and yet they managed between them to have 16 kids who were born at home.

    And let us remind ourselves exactly how things were in our grandmothers time...




    Ireland infant mortality rates (deaths per 1000 births) (From united nations population statistics)

    1950-1955 41.42

    1955-1960 34.25

    1960-1965 28.08

    1965-1970 22.90

    1970-1975 18.28

    1975-1980 15.19

    1980-1985 10.22

    1985-1990 8.39

    1990-1995 6.79

    1995-2000 6.11

    2000-2005 5.51

    2005-2010 4.04




    4 babies dying in birth per thousand now, versus 41 in grannies day.


  • #113
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    pwurple wrote: »
    And let us remind ourselves exactly how things were in our grandmothers time...
    <snip>
    4 babies dying in birth per thousand now, versus 41 in grannies day.

    Not to gainsay you in the least, but wasn't there a story a few weeks ago, in the middle of the tragic Savita events, that showed that the infant mortality figures nowadays were being fiddled?
    Out grandmothers (and my grandmother gave birth in 1912 and 1915, probably a bit before yours!) would have killed to get into today's safe, efficient hospitals. But the hospitals still have questions to answer when women are willing to have riskier home births because a hospital birth is such an alienating experience. (And, of course, there's the general mankiness of modern Irish hospitals and medics, and the risk of hospital-contracted infections.)


  • #114
    ScumLord
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,787 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    Akrasia wrote: »
    Obviously, the state can not force people to come into hospital to deliver their baby but there are professional guidelines for Midwifes that they are legally obliged to follow.
    The state has an obligation to the child too, do we assume the mother has ownership rights over the child and can risk it's life for the sake of having the kind of pregnancy she wants to have regardless of the risks.


    Child birth is extremely risky, outside of modern medicine many woman's first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Some women had to go through a couple of miscarriages before they finally had a child that survived. Having the child in a hospital only increases its chances of survival it still won't guarantee it.


  • #115
    January
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,862 ✭✭✭✭January


    Ms2011 wrote: »
    Really? I disagree to a point. I had a great pregnancy & was looking forward to a natural birth, after a failed induction I ended up with an emergancy section. I can't tell you what a knock to my confidence that was even to the point where I felt like too much of a failure to breast feed.
    Everyone's attitude was 'you should be grateful you have a healthy child' & don't get me wrong I'll be eternally grateful for that. But in hindsight I had no idea how the birth would effect me even now nearly a year & a half on.

    I don't disagree, nearly 5 years after my traumatic experience I'm finally able to say "at least I had a healthy child" (albeit she has a heart condition but that's nothing to do with the traumatic birth and she is healthy overall), things could have been so much worse on the day and while I would have loved to home birth on my subsequent pregnancies, I knew the risks were too high for it to happen, even with the MOU guidelines.

    I had a very specific birth plan, not unrealistic, but an emergency c section under general anesthetic was definitely not part of the plan! It upset me for a long time afterwards. It does not matter how your baby arrived, all that matters is that you and the child are healthy. I know it's hard to think of that now (and especially since I've had two subsequent natural births) but it's the truth and at the time it was the best course of action to keep you and your baby alive.


  • #116
    Wacker The Attacker
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,473 ✭✭✭Wacker The Attacker


    Another pregnant woman who thinks the world revolves around her, her fanny and her baby


  • #117
    Morag
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 8,450 ✭✭✭Morag


    Yes there are those who think once there is a live undamaged baby and a live mother all is well.
    That is not the way to be judging a successful outcome as women who have had traumatic birth experiences will tell you.


  • #118
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 26,219 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Morag wrote: »
    Yes there are those who think once there is a live undamaged baby and a live mother all is well.
    That is not the way to be judging a successful outcome as women who have had traumatic birth experiences will tell you.



    Imagine the trauma of your baby being born damaged or dead because you went against medical advice so you could have the experience you wanted.

    Not what I'd call a risk worth taking or a successful outcome either.


  • #119
    Meangadh
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,963 ✭✭✭Meangadh


    I just think this is more about what the mother wants for herself rather than what the mother wants for her baby.

    I'm not saying the mother's comfort isn't important, because it absolutely is- but she's been told there's a risk, albeit a small one. And I know every pregnancy carries a risk, but if doctors were telling me that I'd probably be better off in a hospital- I'm gonna go with what the doctors say.

    If there was even a CHANCE that I was doing something that was a risk to me or my baby's health (besides usual pregnancy risks), there is absolutely nothing I would stand in the way of to ensure as best I could that I was reducing that risk, even if it wasn't exactly in my original "plan". I cannot understand this mother's stance at all.


  • #120
    Elephant Man from china
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 98 ✭✭Elephant Man from china


    Strange the sense of entitlement this woman seems to have.. She should accept that no means no and make alternative plans.. Childish behaviour by her I think.. Fingers crossed the high court find against her and award costs to the HSE


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  • #121
    clairefontaine
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,390 ✭✭✭clairefontaine


    Candie wrote: »
    Imagine the trauma of your baby being born damaged or dead because you went against medical advice so you could have the experience you wanted.

    Not what I'd call a risk worth taking or a successful outcome either.

    I see both sides of it. The problem is who ultimately has the lasts say of their children, the parents or the state. Where you side with this issue will depend on your views on the individual vs the state.

    In this particular case, if the HSE holds liability, then it should be their call.

    Maternity is so variable and interventionist now, I can understand the resistance. On the other hand, the medics are not always right, but sometimes they are. I met a woman who had the same exact experience as I did. I caved to medical pressure, she didn't. Her child has cerebral palsy as a result of refusing a section.


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