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I think it would depend on how close you live to the hospital. If you live close enough to get to the hospital if the baby is in fetal distress, I see no reason to not try home birth. But if you live in the middle of nowhere, I'd want to be closer to the hospital.
There's no way my children could have been delivered vaginally. My sisters and I all have very, very small hips and very, very big babies. You just can't fit an 11lb baby through a narrow hipped woman. No way. No how. Can't be done.
My sister's poor baby got his head stuck. He was delivered C-section with a bruised cone head. And she suffered the misery of having the pain of both types of delivery---natural and c-section. Swollen down there from his head being stuck and sore from having her stomach cut open.
We all tried to give birth naturally. God had other plans for our families.
If I lived in the middle of nowhere, I definitely wouldn't go the home birth route. I live in a very urban area, though, with lots of hospitals for backup.
I think it would depend on how close you live to the hospital. If you live close enough to get to the hospital if the baby is in fetal distress, I see no reason to not try home birth. But if you live in the middle of nowhere, I'd want to be closer to the hospital.
That is something that one would need to take into serious considering if they were considering a homebirth. If I lived in the middle of nowhere I doubt I would choose a homebirth. Fortunately I live less then a mile from a hospital and that did factor into my decision to choose a homebirth.
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There's no way my children could have been delivered vaginally. My sisters and I all have very, very small hips and very, very big babies. You just can't fit an 11lb baby through a narrow hipped woman. No way. No how. Can't be done. .
Maybe it's true that it couldn't happen for you and your sisters but plenty of small narrow hipped woman can and do give birth vaginally to big babies. I found an interesting article about this here. Narrow hips: Can I deliver vaginally? - iVillage
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Although a woman may appear to have small hips, she may have more than adequate internal measurements. There are about 16 different aspects to the pelvis; however, a few of the most important are the internal diameters, the shape of the pelvis, the curve of the sacrum and the inclination of the pelvic bones
How are all of these low risk women birthing in hospitals having brushes with death when the rates of mortality are the same for women birthing at home? Wouldn't we see much higher rates of death for the homebirth group if this was really the case?
Not a risk I'd be willing to take. Plus, I had my son with no epidural (not by choice). I got an epidural with my daughter. I would take my epidural birth over my natural birth any time, any day. Natural childbirth was the most awful, horrible, excrutiating pain I have ever experienced. (And hope to never experience again!)
Birth is not without risk. You do realize that sometimes women and infants die during labor and after birth even in hospitals. In fact the mortality rate for low risk women (who have either a trained midwife or an OBGYN) and infants is the same despite whether they deliver in the hospital or at home. If you want to ignore research that's your choice.
The hospital near us has a practice that includes mds and midwives. You can have either deliver your baby at the hospital, which has a very home-like birthing room.
If you choose a midwife and need an emergency c-section there is always a doctor available to take care of you. Seems like the best of both worlds for someone who wants a natural, unmedicated delivery along with the peace of mind of knowing that emergency ob/gyn care is available if needed.
I'm not trying to discount the severity of your experience but cord wrapped around the neck is actually pretty common and is an emergency situation that a trained midwife would be capable of handling.
Not when the cord is wrapped so tightly that it is preventing the baby from descending down the birth canal.
I didn't read the article on Dutch home births (because I lived there long enough to find out my own info) but it's worth pointing out that in Holland every home is less than 15 minutes away from a hospital. It's a very small place with a lot of hospitals! Furthermore, the 'midwives' that attend homebirths there are actually trained in regular medical schools, they are considered to be obstetricians. The only obs you will find outside of a midwife's office are those that handle high risk pregnancies. I don't think it's accurate to apply Dutch statistics to the US.
The metaanalysis, which is not a study but a review of select studies is 105 pages long. I have not read read it but have heard of it and have read some of the reviews where serious questions and concerns have been raised about the studies that the authors chose to include and exclude.
It is important to note that the authors’ conclusion differs significantly
from findings of many recent high-quality studies on home birth outcomes which found no significant differences in perinatal outcomes between planned home and planned hospital births. <snip> In this publication, we are
puzzled by the authors’ inclusion of older studies and studies that have been
discredited because they did not sufficiently distinguish between planned and
unplanned home births—a critical factor in predicting outcomes. Also troubling is that several recent credible studies of home birth were excluded for no apparent reason.
I didn't vote on this poll. I believe that far too many women are not having a real shot at a natural childbirth (and all the benefits and lowering of risks that come from that), but also fully believe that being able to give birth in a location where there is ready backup available is a wonderful thing; the problem is that in many American communities it has become this either/or scenario. If we have another child we're going with a midwife at a local hospital with a proven track record of having policies that are supportive of non-medicalized birth. For us, it's the best of both worlds: a birth that is as safe and non-interventionist as possible, but with immediate access to emergency equipment and expertise if it is needed. Unfortunately this option is not available to many women, at least not if they want to give birth near their home.
In the entire state of Illinois the closest we have to a birthing center is one single facility which is inside a hospital west of Chicago. That's literally it.
I'm seeing four, chicagojlo. One in Chicago, two in Oak Park, and one in Forest Park. Granted, they're not all "free standing birthing centers" but rather, sections of a hospital that are dedicated to alternative birthing methods, with private birthing suites, private recovery rooms, family rooms, tub-birth facilities, squat stations, full midwifery support, etc. etc...
But that seems it'd be the best of both worlds from what I can tell. The opportunity to give birth in the way that's most comfortable for the mom, while still in -direct- proximity to emergency facilities to ensure the safety of both mom and baby.
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