did you have unexpected problems with home birth? - Page 13

[alyrie]

I'm not sure how to vote. After 2.5 days of posterior labor (no real issues other than mild dehydration and no sleep), I was transported since I wasn't progressing past 7cm. Ended up with a c-sect. Baby was fine.

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by joyberryjoy

You know, when I posted this poll I really expected to see a greater percentage not having a problem! Though I know this isn't exactly scientific, we do have almost 100 replies, and I've read again and again that 95% (thereabouts) of homebirths go off without a hitch...in this poll we have results showing only about 55% with no problems...a full quarter (almost 25%) had problems that caused them to take either mom or baby to the hospital etc. (they "sought medical help") and another quarter, or thereabouts (slightly less) had problems, but handled them at home.

What do you all think is the explanation for this high rate of reported problems?

Joy

It's a self-selecting poll. You will ALWAYS get answers skewed to the negative with a self-selecting sample than with a random sample. Satisfied people don't tend to respond to polls so much as people who have had difficulties. It's human nature.

[Ilaria]

Yep, that's exactly right.

[pazerific]

i just wanted to post and say that i had originally voted "yes, a problem with babe we transfered for". we had to transfer for heart rate problems with dd (turned out just fine).

too bad there's not a multiple answer option. we just had a happy easy beautiful home birth last week.

[erinspice]

No problems with either that couldn't have been overcome. We went to the hospital anyway, because I had been planning a hospital birth. We were both healthy, though!

[Jade2561]

We had no problems with our homebirth at all. Baby was full term, a little over 2 hours of labor, fast 2nd stage, no tearing, no bleeding. Baby was perfectly healthy and my recovery was very fast. It was pretty darn perfect.

[broodymama]

Another wonderful homebirth here (I had already voted in the poll for DD1's birth). ~2 hour labor, 3 minutes of spontaneous pushing, healthy good-sized chubby babe, great recovery for me.

[babyjelly]

my baby crashed and needed resuscitation, but it was handled very calmly at home, whereas in the hospital it would surely have been panic- and nicu-time. i also bled, and needed pit, but that wasn't entirely unexpected-i bled some after my two hospital births as well.

[seren]

A problem with baby, but we managed at home. We had shoulder dystocia.