Are you considering a home birth? Many women are more comfortable with their friends and family surrounding them in their own home environment and women’s comfort can make a big impact on her labour. Wondering what goes into planning a home birth, and what do you do when you’re met with opposition from people in your life? I got the chance to interview a few Ottawa moms and here is what they each had to say about their home birth experience.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
Gillian: I am 29 years old and have 2 children. I am a cook and originally from Australia. I married a Quebecor.
Robin: I’m a professional actor & music teacher. I have 2 kids, the first was a homebirth and the second was an unplanned surgical birth.
Jessica: I’m 33, I have 3 kids, 2 years apart, first was a hospital birth, second and third were at home.
Tell us about your home birth.
Gillian: It was really easy and drama free. The day I went into labour, I felt a bit crappy, like I was about to get my period but went about my day as normal. In the afternoon I had really light cramping and told my husband that I thought we would have the baby soon. We gave my daughter dinner and my husband put her to bed. By this time I was having real contractions but I was feeling like they were a lot less intense than my first birth. This made me feel like I was going to have a long hard labour. I tried a shower and a bath but they didn’t feel good so I just kept walking around. I called my midwife. She wasn’t too concerned and told me to lie down. NOT A GOOD IDEA!!! The next contraction was really hard. After that I called the midwife and told her the contractions were intense now. She told me she was actually at another birth and would send another midwife to me. I knelt down and got my husband to support my belly through the contractions. After about 20 minutes I had to push. Two pushes and my baby boy was born!!! Two minutes after that my daughter woke and got meet him. Just after that the replacement midwife arrived!! It was so amazing.
Robin: It was really great. I laboured through the night, mostly in my bathroom, and my son was born right on my own bed. It was very quiet and private. My mum & my best friend were with us, along with my midwife and her student. My friend baked muffins just before I started pushing so half an hour after the baby was born, there we were all six (seven!) of us, eating fresh warm muffins and orange juice and admiring our sweet new boy.
Jessica: My first home birth was very organic and relaxed, with midwives in Gatineau. I gave birth to my daughter about 12 hours after labor began. Pain was bearable throughout the whole thing, I felt very comfortable and competent. Second home birth was with midwives in Ontario, and while it was great to be at home, it was a slightly more medical experience, and they were very hands off. It was still way better than going to hospital. I decided to have a home birth because 1. I don’t like hospitals, they are dirty and gross and they smell weird, 2. I had no medical need for the interventions available there, 3. It sucks to bring a brand new baby home in a carseat, 4. I get hungry during labor, and I didn’t want flack about eating, 5. I wanted to have my friends at my labor as well as the father, 6. The midwives provided superior prenatal care to the ob’s I experienced and 7. The interruptions in my room at the hospital were SO annoying, that didn’t happen at my house.
Why did you decide to have home birth and what factors did you take into consideration when choosing a home birth?
Gillian: I had a perfectly fine hospital birth the first time and really wanted a home birth the second time round. I just feel it is so natural to give birth and that we don’t always need doctors and nurses and machinery.
Robin: We weren’t sure when we first got pregnant if that’s what we wanted to do but we knew we wanted midwifery care because of the time they take and their approach to birth as a very normal event. We did lots of research and talked to our midwives and other people and decided our plan was to “stay home as long as we feel safe there, and go to the hospital if we didn’t”. It was a great choice because it left us lots of flexibility in our thinking.
Jessica: Proximity to hospital, recommendations of my midwife, my health was good, I had no medical need for the hospital and chances of infection/postnatal mortality in hospital vs home birth.
What do you need to prepare for a home birth mentally and emotionally?
Gillian: For me, I just needed my house to be tidy and to have a space to birth in. Which I did, our spare room.
Robin: Well I don’t really think preparing for a home birth is any different from preparing for a hospital birth, except that you do need a midwife since generally speaking doctors won’t come to your house. That’s just logistics though. I think that preparing for birth means educating yourself in the details of what your body is doing so that you can “get out of the way”. I happened to use Hypnobirthing but I don’t think that was particularly key, it’s just what I did. It is a good system for prep though because it is so great for training you to relax through contractions, when your inclination might otherwise be to clench up (if you clench up, it tightens the muscles that are trying to loosen, causing pain and slowing everything down – relaxing hurts way less and allows your body to do its job of opening).
Jessica: Mentally and emotionally for any birth you need to realize it might be difficult to let go of the little human you have been brewing, emotionally it’s good to have the support of your partner, and any friends/family you might have with you. Mentally, just be sure you have all your stuff ready, including meals and a hospital bag. Have a “birth project” in case it takes a long time. Have a plan for going to the hospital. Discuss/write down how it will go if you decide to go, or if it’s necessary. “Prepare for the worst, expect the best”.
What supplies would you suggest someone have a home birth have on hand?
Gillian: I used a natural product called ‘rescue remedy’ when I started to feel a bit anxious as I needed to push. For the rest, I was given a list by the midwives.
Robin: The midwives will give you a list of what you need. I don’t think we needed any supplies other than what they suggested, they have got that list down to a T (of course they do, it’s their work! ). Having a close friend there doing fresh baking ROCKED though . If you had another child already you’d probably want someone there dedicated to caring for that child while you & your partner labour. Oh, and if you don’t happen to own a washer, you’d want a plan for dealing with the messy sheets.
Jessica: Puppy pads, shower curtain to put on bed, sheets that you can bleach or throw out, some food that you love, some good-smelling things or essential oils, heat packs, big Maxi pads, birth ball or birth pool, a couple of tennis balls in a sock, childcare for other kids, carseat installed in car. Oh, and coffee for the midwives, and beer/wine for you.
How did people around them react to wanting a home birth how did they deal with people saying that they were putting their baby in danger?
Gillian: I had talked about with my family first so people were kind of used to it. And for some that I asked if I was scared I said No, I have a midwife, the birth centre is close and they will send me to the hospital if needed.
Robin: I actually didn’t hear this from ANYBODY. I had family & friends who were skeptical but nobody was disrespectful of my choice, they would never say anything so extreme as that. I had a couple of friends who had had complications during their births who asked me to consider what would happen if I had the same complications, but I was able to explain how midwives would deal with those complications at home (in all cases, the complications were things the midwives could deal with either through the tools/medications they would have with them or by transport to the hospital). My mother was probably the most skeptical person but once I explained the reasons we were planning midwifery care (we preferred to avoid the routine hospital interventions and the complications those interventions sometimes cause), and then my mum met our midwife and was “on board with quiet reservations” after that. After my son was born, she actually started talking to all her friends about my home birth and how great it was, how safe, how professional the midwives. Pretty cool. But I have that kind of open minded Mum who is able to accept new information and adapt her opinions.
Jessica: I reacted by backing up my decision with facts and statistics add well as a dismissive attitude towards idiots who thought they could tell me what to do. Any time someone told me a story, and they would start, I would ask if the story has a positive beginning middle and end. If not, I didn’t want to hear it. Plus, if I needed an emergency c- section at my house, I was the same number of minutes away from being cut open as I would have been in hospital.
Do you have any tips for other mamas out there that want to have a home birth or are trying to decide if a home birth is right for them?
Gillian: Just go for it. Midwives will not birth ‘at risk’ babies, so if they see a problem, they will send you to the doctor. I also found that because the midwife appointments were about an hour each time, compare to the 5 min doc appointments, I found I had a better relationship with the midwife and had a more holistic experience. Plus the postpartum care was very good.
Robin: You don’t actually have to decide. Get a midwife, it opens up the option, that’s really the only thing you actually have to DO. Because you can just plan to stay home for as long as you feel good there. If you stop feeling good about it, or the midwife stops feeling good about it, well then, go to the hospital. But odds are very high your baby will be born peacefully at home. PS – the “rules” I was working with apply in Ontario. Our midwives transfer with us to hospital and stay with us even if our care needs to be transferred to an OB for an intervention that midwives don’t do (like surgery).
Jessica: My tips are give birth where you feel safe and supported. For some that’s in hospital, for some that’s at home. Spend some time creating the environment you want to labor and birth in, and you want your child born into. Include as many or as fee people as you want. Hire a photographer! If you love baths, rent a birth pool, even if you don’t intend on giving birth in it. Love your amazing, miraculous body and be honoured that this time is where spirit becomes flesh, when got birth that beautiful baby, and you deserve to feel beautiful, like a warrior queen.
Thanks to Kim from Breathe In Photography for the beautiful photos.
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