Why birth center as a compromise for home vs. hospital? - Page 2

[Veritaserum]

It's a psychological distinction that helps some people (going somewhere to give birth, not liking their home, etc.).

[Pookietooth]

I had some reasons: 1) I wouldn't have to clean beforehand (I am a terrible housekeeper and don't feel comfortable having people over without a massive cleanup effort) 2) It's a lot bigger than my small apartment 3) It comes with a great tub and 4) It's closer to the hospital in case of a transfer. But I think we're going home birth so we don't have to go anywhere and so that I'll feel more comfortable.

[JennTheMomma]

I had my first in a Birth Center with an OB. There was no Midwife near me to be able to have a homebirth at that time, and wasn't comfortable with a UC. I loved it, was very peaceful and the rooms were like little hotel suites, very homey and more comfortable then our own house at the time. We've moved since then and have a Midwife now so we're having a homebirth next time around.

[lalemma]

My MW pointed out that for people who live in pretty rural areas, a birth center is a great solution to the dilemma of wanting a homelike atmosphere, but also not wanting to be an hour-long drive from the hospital in case you need to transfer.

[tygrss]

I think it comes down to feeling as if you must GO somewhere to give birth. Also, sometimes birth centers may be closer to the hospital. For my birth with DS I had him at a freestanding birth center because I wasn't quite ready for a home birth (although I labored at home and then walked into the birth center and had him 15 minutes later!).

Also, the equipment at a birth center depends on the birth center (and probably the state). My birth center had EVERYTHING needed for resuscitation and could do anything that a hospital could do other than a c-section. All of the stuff was kept out of site, but it's there. Likewise, all rescusitation materials that are at the birth center are brought to your home for a home birth.

[Dera]

Originally Posted by ShwarmaQueen

I think it also boils down to the feeling, in our culture, that institutions are somehow safer than homes.

A lot of people are making blanket statements and forming opinions off of stereotypes. Do you realize this before you say it? I thought we weren't supposed to assume the motives of others without knowing? This statement is an opinion. Maybe you are all right, that people choose a birth center because it's a place to go. But maybe, people choose a birth center because they want out of a hospital and their home isn't suitable, or they know they would be more comfortable in a center. Maybe that's 90% of people who choose a birth center. Maybe women who choose natural childbirth know better than what many of you assume.

My birth center was close to a hospital but that didn't matter. I knew I wouldn't go there. I went there because we live in one awful apartment with thin walls after another. Awful tubs, we don't feel home here, the ability to hear your neighbors party, no extra cash for supplies needing to homebirth... Maybe I am the majority of cases birthing in a center. My best friend went to a birth center because her home wasn't suitable either. The birth center is beautiful, spotless, calming, has big tubs, had a quiet, safe place for my toddler, I could go on and on.

Something to keep in mind.

[sevenkids]

Some of the reasons my clients choose birth center over home birth are, for one, definately cultural. We're used to packing a bag and going somewhere to have a baby. The idea of staying at home is strange and foreign to a lot of people. Packing a suitcase with baby clothes and birth needs has become almost a preperation ritual for pregnant families, like putting together the bassinet, painting the baby's room, gathering the layette, the baby shower. It helps a family feel ready.

Yes, sometimes the partners/family members are iffy about having the baby at home, and it can be a good compromise for the family to go to a birth center if it makes someone (an important someone) in the birthing family feel safer.

Many of my younger couples live with family members, and do not want, or have approval, to use the family's home for their birth. It's never a good idea to try to birth surrounded by people who aren't 100% supportive.
Or, they feel as if their homes are not comfortable/convenient/large enough for birthing there. A family may desire a waterbirth and not have a large tub (or any tub) and not enough room to put up a rental or blow up. Another reason I have heard is the family has pets, usually large dogs, and are worried about how the animals will handle being around "their people" in labour.

Some mothers, as has been mentioned, feel as if they would not be able to relax in their own homes, because they look around and see things that need attending to. They feel as if they should be washing the dishes or doing the laundry instead of focusing on giving birth.

Location is another reason, some families live very far from a hospital, or a hospital they would choose to transport to in the case of emergency. Birth centers typically have some sort of working relationship with their closest OB unit.

Sometimes it's financial. Insurances may not pay for a homebirth, but will pay for a birth center. Not having to haggle with insurance companies or come up with cash out of pocket can relieve a lot of stress for some families.

And I have seen that quite often, the birth center becomes a stepping stone to homebirth. The family has a successful birth center birth, and chooses to stay home for the next baby.
These are very valid reasons for choosing a birth center over a homebirth. Those reasons may not be important for some, but for others they are.

[sweetpea_119]

I didn't end up in a birth center, but I looked last time because I knew I couldn't be in the hospital without being cut open again. None of the FSBCs here can do a VBAC outside of hospital walls, so I looked into the even easier (for me!) choice of homebirthing.

I didn't know, as I'm sure many others don't either, how much equipment a HB midwife has to deal with nearly everything except a c/s in a home-environment. My DH was *very* concerned about having a HB because the hospital folks had scared him so badly with my DS's birth (my 2nd c/s). But after learning about what we'd have access to in case of emergency in addition to the monitoring that my midwife would be doing, it was an easy choice for us. I know I never would have had a VBA2C in the hospital I would have had to use!

In my case, I have to agree about it being a cultural thing. Even though I've known others who have had HBs before, they were regarded as being a bit unusual, so I just assumed it was safer to do what the doctor said & go to the hospital...no more!!

[AnnR33]

I totally agree with you and told my DH the same thing. He saw the birth center and knew it was like our bedroom at home with no special equipment and only a few minutes closer to the hospital.

But for some reason a birth center was acceptable to him and a homebirth freaked him out. So I compromised and went w/ the birth center because it was an awesome environment with a great tub.

However, when the time came, baby came fast and we beat the mw there so DH delivered baby in our van in front of the birth center LOL

You can guess that he "got it" after he saw how easy/natural it was and my last babe was born at home with no argument at all from DH

[*MamaJen*]

The only reasons I can think of for me, personally, to choose a birth center would be if I was in a bad living situation (like living with toxic inlaws or a house in the middle of renovations) or if my home was really, really far from the hospital. I think it is really common for guys to think a birth center is safer or more appropriate than a home birth. I felt that way for about two days until I did more research.
But that's just me. I think the most important thing is you want to labor in a place where you feel comfortable. If a pregnant lady feels more comfortable in a free standing birth center than at home, then that's where she should go.

[MamaTaraX]

We had our second at an in-hospital birth centre. Just as I had convinced my partner to have a homebirth, the practice of midwives that he was comfortable with disbanded. At that time, he was not as comfortable with CPMs and there were no other CNMs doing homebirths. We could not afford the freestanding birth centre as we had state insurance, which they don't take, and couldn't afford it out of pocket. So we went to the in-hospital birth centre. I felt good that he felt good. The experience was fantastic, my best birth by far, and it did pave the way for my partner to be comfortable with homebirth for future babies. HE felt safer there. he felt I was safer there and the baby, too. It was okay with me, then, for him to be so happy. We talked about it ad naseum and came to a decision together. Simply switching from OB care to midwife care was invaluable for him.

In no way did I feel like I was tricking my partner. If I'd really wanted to have a homebirth, I'd have fought more, however at that particular time, it was far more important to me to have him on board than it was to argue. Logically he understood that birth was just as safe and more satisfactory (usually) at home. Something inside him did not grasp this logic well though and the speaking part of him wasn't feeling the logic part of him. I still feel like we made an excellent compromise. For many families, it really is a halfway point between one and the other and oftentimes it does, like it did for us, pave the way for future homebirths. For many, they find reassurance at having a hospital nearby "just in case" or they find they can relax and let go better in "someone else's bed or tub" than in their own. I think birth centres are valid birth locations for many situations and I don't think they are cheating anything. I'm a staunch homebirth supporter, but above that, I'm supportive of women birthing where they feel most comfortable.

[YummyYumYumMama]

absolutely financial over here. it can be hard, and sometimes impossible, in MA to get homebirth covered because a lot of the companies that say they cover homebirth will only cover it with a CNM, and in MA it is illegal for a CNM to attend a homebirth, so yeah.

DH and i would love and are hoping for a homebirth. it will cost us around $3,500. if we went to one of the birth centers around here, it would cost us $250. all because of insurance.

do we want it to be about money? no. but at the same time, that $3,500 doesn't grow on trees. if we don't have an extra few thousand bucks to pay for a homebirth, we don't have a lot of options. we need to eat and have a place to live, so spending months' worth of food and rent on birth is a difficult decision. i mean, we can't have a homebirth if we're homeless, but our HBMW would deserve to be paid fairly for her work!

i am hoping to find a MW who uses a sliding scale or is willing to do a barter, because DH and i want a homebirth so badly next time around, but if it ends up coming down to the fact that we simply cannot afford it, we will be birthing out of home with DC#2 as well.

really, if the healthcare industry just stopped denigrating homebirth and we could actually have it be covered by insurance, it would be an absolute no-brainer for us.

[dealic]

I don't have kids yet, so this is pure conjecture. But if there were freestanding birth centres here, I would use them. By the time I will probably be having kids (crossing fingers) I will live in an apartment still. I don't know if it will be a building or a basement. I worry about making noise and this will probably hamper my labour. Not that I would choose a hospital because of it, but a nice, clean, comfortable house would be my preference. And I just won't likely have that.

I don't think its safer. If I had a house I wouldn't choose one. Though there is some appeal to them having everything and not needing to plan my supplies, in reality, my ocd likes planning the details so that's not a reason.

[thefragile7393]

Originally Posted by mama to 2 girls

Sorry I just had to laugh because I had my last 2 with the same m/w but with dd2 I used her FSBC and with ds I had him at home and it ended up costing us more to do a homebirth!

This was my experience too....my insurance covered the wonderful FSBC my son was born at and it was a lot cheaper then our homebirth! Of course that's nto the same for everyone, depends on insurance mainly (if any). And for many, the peace of mind is well worth the cost of course.

[mcgee]

We looked into a freestanding birth center here before settling on a home birth. DH liked the idea of a birth center because it seemed more like a hospital to him. When we actually did more research, we discovered that we would not have one midwife - we'd have to see ALL of the midwives at the birthing center and have our baby delivered by whomever happened to be on call. While that worked well for us with our daughter's hospital birth (we knew the on call doc from our clinic, and we loved our clinic's CNM who was there that day too and actually ended up delivering DD), we didn't know if we wanted to go that route again. We'd also heard from others that the midwife turnover rate was fairly high at the birth center too, which was a big downside for us.

In terms of proximity to the hospital, the birthing center is about four miles from the hospital where I would be giving birth if I hadn't fired my OB. They have a fairly high c-section rate. Our home is about four miles to a brand new community hospital with a maternity ward and a NICU. Six of one, half a dozen of another.

Plus a birthing center felt like a hospital to me because I would have to GO somewhere. I'd still have to pack a bag, I'd have to write out a birthing plan especially since I'd have no way of knowing in advance who'd be on call when I went into labor, I'd have to pack a bag for the baby, we'd have to make arrangements to drop DD off somewhere until my parents could arrive, we'd have to labor under someone else's rules and procedures, and while I wouldn't be moved immediately to a post-partum room at the birthing center, I'd still have to pack up and go home fairly quickly after the birth. Why go to all that trouble if I could just stay home???

[WTHamI?]

A birthing center may be what we end up with because I am not getting anywhere near a hospital unless it's absolutely necessary, but our RV lifestyle may get in the way of a homebirth depending on our situation once I get pregnant. I am set on a waterbirth (or at least having the birthing tub available to me even if I don't actually give birth in it) and that will really only be an option if we acquire a 5th Wheel with a toy-hauler bay (which can accommodate the space and weight of a pool) between now and then, or find a furnished house or apartment to rent for just the month I'm due. A couple of the CNMs I'm planning to interview once I get a BFP have a birth center but also do homebirth, so one of them would be great in case things work out for a homebirth at the last minute. I would love to not have to go anywhere for the birth but it may not be a viable option.

Our situation is a little unique, but an example that many people probably choose birth center births because they would prefer a homebirth but don't have a living situation that is really conducive to it. I could also see people who live in an apartment with extremely nosy neighbors who might call 911 "for your own good" (we've lived next to people like that) going to a birth center in order to avoid such unwelcome interruptions.

[eloise24]

Originally Posted by Dera

A lot of people are making blanket statements and forming opinions off of stereotypes. Do you realize this before you say it?

Something to keep in mind.

Totally agree here! If I had a big house, I might consider a homebirth. But I have a small apartment with 10 boys living on the other side of the walls. Um, no thanks! To me, it's nice to go somewhere else and have THEM clean up all the mess . . . and not have to worry about when I'm going to give birth and if I'm ready here.

Also, my free-standing birth center has medical supplies- oxygen, etc. I don't know how one *could not* . . . that seems weird to me. Anyway!

[petra_william]

i chose a birth centre first time round because i wanted the 24/7 hour aftercare- i wanted to get the breastfeeding thing sorted and i'd hardly ever held a newborn before. the care was fantastic and really worth it. i contemplated a HB with first baby but simply because of the aftercare i went to the birthing centre. now ive btdt i will have a hb as i would want to be at home asap after birth anyway (to be with ds)