Are there any RN's out there who have had a home birth and a hospital birth and what are your views on them, I am an obstetric RN whos interested in other RN's views on this....
my question is raised after watching ricki lake's documentary of The Business of Being Born" any one watch this video
any comments or concerns are well appreciated!
Tiffany
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November 26th, 2008 at 2:15 am
I was a labor and delivery nurse for a year and a half. I have not experienced or assited in a home deleivery but I have personally delivered 6 babies without a doctor’s assistance. The thing that kept me calm through it was remembering that Eve had a baby in a Garden WAAAAAAY before the thought of Hospitals came into play and there have been COUNTLESS since then. Yes, it is wonderful the technology we have to help us monitor mom and baby but if parents and healthcare providers are willing to take this journey at home, be willing to go to the hospital is problems arise, and be smart enough to have assistance from someone who can IDENTIFY problems, I say, “Go for it.” It’s a beautiful thing!
November 27th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
I totally understand why some desire a home birth. Going natural, being in an intimate environment, and so on are personal requests that are not irrational. However there are reasons babies are born in hospitals. Look up the maternal death rate and newborn death rate for back in the day when babies were being born at home. My opinion on it is that you can go natural in the hospital. You can have a quiet intimate setting in the hospital. You may need to shop around for the right doctor, but it can be done. Noone can make you get medicines and procedures that you don’t want. But the fact remains that childbirth can be a very complex and dangerous situation and can go downhill fast. So if your at home and decide there is a problem it could be too late by the time you get to the hospital and they figure out whats going on and what to do to handle the situation. I empethize with those who prefer a home birth, but is it really worth mom and baby’s health? Good topic Tiffany because home birth is getting more popular by the minute and it makes me nervous. I don’t think the ones deciding this are properly informed of all that can go wrong and the effects. Someone has put into their brain that western medicine is messing with mother nature and that it is bad for their baby. This can be true, I don’t argue that, but thats why you have the right to refuse whatever you don’t want. However, my advice to a pregnant woman would be labor and deliver at the hospital so you can be monitored closely and emergency treatment is immediatly available should it be needed. I have been a perinatal nurse for 5 years mainly working in L&D and Nursery. I may never see it all, but I have seen alot. I’ll go on and give a situation that I did see that I feel fits this topic. Had a pt. going natural. And I mean natural, not just no epidural. No pitocin, no IV meds, NOTHING. She delivered the baby. It was healthy and wonderful. I was the nursery nurse that took care of the baby. When I realized we had a problem was when I had finished all my measurements and assessments on the baby and had him wrapped in the blanket ready to hand him back to the mom. I realized the placenta had not delivered yet and this is rare as you probably know. Long story short, she had placenta accreta but the placenta did deliver in a couple more minutes, still attatched to the uterus. So, if you can imagine, the placenta adhered to the uterus, the uterus prolapsed inside out on the bed. The girl still has had no meds. So besides the fact she is in horrible pain, she is now in a life or death situation, and 95% (I pulled that statistic out of thin air. It is probably a higher.) chance of hysterectomy. She went straight to surgery to have the placenta removed. She did keep her uterus by the grace of God, but only he knows if it will sustain another pregnancy, and she recieved several units of blood. Western medicine didn’t cause that. Its just one of the many complications that can arise. I can only imagine what may have happened had this been a home birth.
November 28th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Home birth is fine – I was home born and there was a lot less technology around then too. But if there are known complications in the pregnancy or expected at the birth then the mother needs to be informed and even then still given a choice.
I’m all about people making choices – and not always thinking the worst.
November 29th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I have been a labor and delivery nurse for years. I am really stuggling with this issue as I have seen terrbile things that happen and was adamant about hospital births. However, It is a healthy thing and beautiful to have a natural delivery when it is all planned and the mom has prepared herself mentally.
A natural birth in a hospital… would be a great solution if in fact you can find that!
December 1st, 2008 at 8:12 am
I have been a L&D RN for approx 12 years….I have know a few of my colleagues that had home births and birthing center births….they both were a struggle, had complications and the baby had to be bagged ’till the ambulance arrived and then taken to the hospital think of all that precious time wasted for that child. Seconds could mean sooo much in a neonate. I do understand women wanting it peaceful and not having intruders and monitors and wires and tubes all over you but in my opinion that’s the sacrifices you start making for your child even before they are out of the womb….
Now that being said…if you are a model patient, in model health, gain appropriate weight, have no medical issues that would need to be treated with antbx or antivirals, you’ve had a successful birth or the doctor has said your pelvic shape is right for a vag delivery, don’t have any large babies running in the family or your previous baby was not a shoulder dystocia, your not diabetic and you have had several ultrasounds throughout that show the baby in the correct position and gaining appropriate but not to much weight then I’d so go for it…it’s your birth….but if your water breaks prematurely, the baby is having dips of the heart rate with any contractions during the earlier monitoring phace, your water breaks and it is thick meconium or you start to bleed excessively…don’t stall have a hospital with your records all ready there near by and always see if you can meet a doctor that practices in that facility and have a visit or so with him first and ask if he would mind covering you as a patient if you end up needing to be tranferred over from a home birth with a mid-wife attending. Some won’t mind doing this and then you won’t just get stuck with any ol physician on call and irritated! BE SAFE and very conservative….
December 1st, 2008 at 11:58 pm
I have been at thousands of births and finally gave up obstetrics because of how disgusted I got with how we have medicalized what is essentially a beautiful natural process. My siblings live in the Netherlands where home births are the norm, not an exception. But here in the US, we have arrived at the situation where over a quarter of the births occur through surgical intervention. Something is wrong with this picture. I strongly encourage home births and midwife births. A great birth is an empowering event that is with you for life. It is an unforgettable experience. Pass it forward if you can.
December 4th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
what people need to realize is that birthing is a very personal, emotional, and obviously physical process towards which women have adamant and highly differing views. I actually had another student nurse tell me that she thought women who home birthed were stupid and crazy. This is the one physical process where people have many options over and it is all completely their choice (except with medical conditions like pre-eclampsia or others). Whatever the mother’s view, I always advocate safety and choosing their options cautiously and carefully. There are midwives, doulas, different forms of pain control (even self-hypnosis these days), and multigravidas can even birth by themselves by becoming in tune with their bodies. I always say, if you choose something like that, be only like 10 minutes away from a hospital so if something goes wrong, you can be SAFE. Who are we to decide how someone is supposed to go through a personal process???
December 5th, 2008 at 6:23 am
I am an L&D nurse that has been working in the USA for the past 8 years, prior to that I had been working as a midwife in New Zealand and England. I have one child, who I had at home in NZ with two midwives in attendance. I feel very strongly about having the choice of birthing environment, but agree that above all, safety must be our first concern. A nice birthing experience is great, but not at the expense of the health of mother or child. I have seen a lot of “disasters” in the hospital, some of which could have been prevented had the medical profession waited for nature to take it’s course instead of feeling the need to hurry everything up with amniotomies and pitocin. But things can also go wrong at home. I think that to have a home birth you need to have a more than competent caregiver, and trust her implicitly, so that if she says “we need to go to the hospital now”, then you go!! Also you need to make sure that the pregnancy is “NORMAL”. If you have diabetes, polyhydramnios, a small baby, high blood pressure, a scar on your uterus, a breech baby, or anything else that makes your pregnancy complicated, you probably are not a candidate for a homebirth.