“I’m planning a Home Birth”. It amazes me
that this simple, short statement can evoke such a torrent of emotion and be an
area where people feel they have the right to comment on someone else’s
choices; the phrase ‘you’re so brave’ springs to mind here. Yet without doubt,
the discussions and thoughts around home birth bring to mind many powerful
images, not least of ‘danger and emergency’, but for some, the image that the ‘sort
of woman’ who may choose home birth, as being a slightly alternative, incense
burning, ‘hippie’.
Home birth is not a new
concept; home,
since the time of (wo)man, has been the place where women birthed their babies.
In the beginning, home was most likely to have been a sheltered cave, nestled
on a hill-side somewhere, and over time has developed into the style of housing
that we now know in the western world. Hospital as a place of birth however, is
a fairly recent development in the time line of history and yet it has been
culturally accepted as the safe place to give birth, even though study after
study, report after report does not uphold this notion. Now, don’t get me wrong
here; the advent of technology, obstetrics and the caesarean birth
have played a hugely important role in making birth safe for both mother and
baby – and we now experience very low rates of maternal and infant mortality
and morbidity. However, it is not exclusively through birth taking place in
hospital that has lowered these rates so significantly, but the development of
excellent antenatal care, drugs for the prevention of haemorrhage and
infection, and the development of health professionals’ skills in recognising and
managing emergency situations.
In an article in ‘The
Times’ newspaper (May 09), journalist Melanie Reid launched a scathing attack
on women who had or were planning home births: she labelled them as
spoilt and complacent, insinuating that intelligent women choose hospital
birth, and only ‘sandal-wearing' women (the hippie word again?) would choose
home birth.
True? – far from it;
Factual? – indeed not;
Emotive? – yes and yes again.
Ms Reid is not alone however in voicing her opinion,
and this is part of the problem for women who are considering home birth – the
emotion that decision causes, the myths around home birth and the presumption
of ‘safety’ deter many women from pursuing, what is in fact, a very normal,
very safe choice.
I had my third baby at home; it was a
well-researched, informed, intelligent decision. I met some opposition along
the way, but on the whole felt well supported and confident in this decision.
No, it was not my ‘first baby’, but how I wish it had been! I had never truly
considered home birth an option, after all I did not know anyone who had given
birth at home. I had been born in hospital and I was not a sandal-wearing
hippie. Why on earth would I want a home birth? Well after experiencing two
less than positive hospital births, I felt instinctively that there had to be
another way. And there was, and it was fantastic – hard work – but empowering,
positive, and ‘uniquely normal’.
The home birth rate in the UK
is around 2%,
but in parts of the UK the home birth rate is a staggering 50%! In areas where
the home birth rate exceeds the average, there are some telling trends in the
way maternity care is delivered: midwives actively offer home birth throughout
pregnancy and discuss it in an open, friendly manner; women share positive stories
of their home birth experiences - giving other women confidence in their own
ability to give birth; and women are attended at home, in labour, by
a midwife (they often know) and make the final decision on the big day itself!
This gives them the freedom to see how they are feeling and coping, knowing
that they will be well supported by the midwife, by family and birth
supporters, whatever their decision. I would challenge anyone to categorise all
those women as hippies.
The DoH has aims to increase the home
birth rates for women to experience real choice within maternity services; of course this is still to be
delivered and is an ongoing issue for most women. Following
the inception of the NHS it took national campaigns to persuade women to give
birth in hospital, needing continual reassurances of cleanliness (hospitals
were previously associated with mortality due to infection – very different
from now?), and the influential offer of 10 days rest and food. The stark
reality in the UK at present is that hospital birth no longer comes with the
benefit of complete rest – women are encouraged to leave as quickly as possible
due to the high demand for beds (at home you get your own bed); NHS trusts are
stretched to capacity with midwife shortages on the labour ward (at
home you get your own midwife); and the caesarean section rate is spiralling out
of control (planning a home birth halves the chance of you needing a caesarean section).
Hospital is the perfect place for giving birth for the
woman who may need additional obstetric care, who may need paediatric care
for her new baby or who may not have the support in place to have her baby at
home – and no one ever seems to feel the need to comment on those decisions.
Next time someone says to you “I’m planning a home birth”, take a closer look;
I expect you will find a normal woman, making a normal choice, planning to have
a normal birth in the perfect place for her. And not a ‘hippie’
in sight!
No comments:
Post a Comment