I’m planning a home birth in our tenement flat in Glasgow. Why am I doing it? What’s my experience been of the home birth team so far? And how am I preparing for the birth?
Just become aware of a poonami and don’t have time to read the whole blog post?
Here are the highlights:
- For low-risk pregnancies, home birth is considered as safe as hospital birth
- The Glasgow home birth team provides continuity of care throughout your pregnancy
- To help me get into the oxytocin-rich bubble that helps birth progress, I’ll be employing my favourite friends: fairy lights and comfort telly. I’m also hiring a birth pool, which my cats will be shooed away from
Why I’m planning a home birth this time
The birth of my eldest took place in Glasgow’s Royal Alexandra Hospital, out in Paisley. I had planned for a pool birth in the community midwifery unit, but after an uninspiring bath at home in early labour decided to sack it off in favour of some drugs. Now I think it’s fair to say that my small bath in my new-build flat probably wasn’t ever going to offer the same pain-relieving benefits as a lovely deep birth pool, but I didn’t feel like giving water a second chance by the time I got to the hospital. Off I went to the labour ward, the promise of morphine bright in my eyes.
I never got the morphine, but in hindsight I’m glad. We had enough breastfeeding issues without bringing a sleepy baby into the mix, and although the intensity of labour shocked me to my core (I really was just expecting to breathe my baby out), I was also rather amazed that I did actually cope on gas and air alone. Me! With the non-existent pain threshold!
Fast forward a couple of years and I’m expecting my second baby. This time round – after months of training and researching in antenatal education and just generally being birth-obsessed – I’ve decided to plan for a home birth. And not just for reasons of being generally a bit crunchier these days than I was pre-motherhood – for low-risk pregnancies, home birth is just as safe as hospital birth, and your chances of interventions such as episiotomy, forceps, ventouse, and caesarean are reduced too.
A side note on safety for any first-time parents who were thinking about planning a home birth
Doesn’t the NHS website say it’s slightly safer for first-time parents to give birth in the hospital? That is indeed the guidance on the NHS site, but this information is based on data from 2011. Since then, in 2019, a massive meta-analysis (a review of the results taken from lots of different studies) was published by The Lancet, a highly respected medical journal. These reviewers found that home birth was just as safe as hospital birth for low-risk pregnancies, even for first-time parents.
If you don’t have much of a head for medical studies (which – fair), midwife and researcher Sara Wickham is very good at translating them into accessible articles. You can read her piece on the safety of home birth here.
My experience with the home birth team so far in Glasgow
Across the UK, it is common to see home birth teams being suspended or even fully shut down due to lack of funding and chronic staffing issues. In the UK you have the right to choose your place of birth, and that includes the choice of a home birth – but the reality sometimes looks a little different.
I have had the good fortune not to experience any of this in Glasgow, where the home birth team provides continuity of care across your pregnancy. I knew I wanted a home birth since before I became pregnant, so all of my appointments so far have been with the same (lovely, charming, friendly and knowledgeable) midwife. All things going well, i.e. assuming that I don’t go into labour just as she is coming off a long shift, she will also attend my birth.
It can make a huge difference to have a midwife who actually knows you attend your labour. You’re familiar with each other, so your cosy oxytocin bubble (so important for keeping labour progressing!) is less likely to evaporate into thin air when they arrive. She’s familiar with your behaviour and this will make it easier for her to assess whereabouts in your labour you are just by observing your breathing, posture, and communication.
What happens if my midwife isn’t available?
So what happens if I do go into labour and my midwife can’t make it? Well, first, we accept that it’s not safe for her to push through and make her way to my home to attend my birth. Midwives work long, gruelling shifts and it wouldn’t be safe for her to come and look after me and my baby if she’s already exhausted.
There is some cautionary preparation I can do beforehand, though. The Glasgow home birth team holds regular meetups at the hospital for you to come and meet the rest of the team. The idea behind this is that every face will be at least a little bit familiar to you should your assigned midwife not be able to make it to your birth.
Preparing my home for birth
And I’ll put effort into making my home birth setup as cosy and oxytocin-rich as I can. Yes, I am going to give a birthing pool another go. And I’ve already chosen the location: right in front of the TV, probably watching some Parks and Rec in the early hours, in my beautiful, bright, yet cosy living room. I will have fairy lights and warm lamps. The big light will never come on (big light has no vibe). I’m going to get some speakers that aren’t the shitty, tinny ones that we bought on sale from HMV in the mid-2010s, and they will play my favourite oxytocin-boosting songs, probably from the same playlist I had playing when my daughter was born. She almost popped out at the ET finale song – make of that what you will.
So this is my plan. At 17 weeks pregnant I’ve only had two appointments, but have been so impressed with the service so far. I’ll keep you updated as my pregnancy progresses – things can change, but I hope very much that they don’t!