did your mw ask what your mother thinks about birth?

[texaspeach]

I noticed on a couple of homebirth mws webpages, their new patient forms have questions like "what does your mother think about birth? your father?" and "what does your mother think about sex? your father?"

did your mw ask questions like that?

[ckhagen]

My m/w asked if my family (mother and father) was on-board with the decision... not because I need their approval, but I think because she just wanted to know if I was going to have family being combative with me and disturbing my peace and causing fear. It was nice to be able to tell her that at first they were totally against it, but after some edumacation by me, they felt very comfortable with it.

[MsBlack]

I ask such questions of my clients as a way to understand them, their situation and needs as fully as possible. No one is an island...we are a social species who are affected, for better or worse, by those in our social group, especially our families.

What I have seen is that parental/family input about homebirth can be an important factor in the success (or not) of a homebirth. Our parents tend to have such a strong influence over our emotions--and our emotions have so much to do with how we live, choices we make, risks we take. Not that someone whose parents disapprove of hb will be a 'poor candidate', or will necessarily wind up in the hospital, but if I know that a woman/couple does not have full family support for homebirth, that helps me know something about what we are up against (challenges to the birth) and how I might best give support to the woman/couple. For instance, in the absense of familial support, I will urge couples to hook up with online support, or hb supportive groups in real life in their region....because in a nation, and in an era, where hb is not 'usual and normal', people generally need *some* kind of social support to help them stay focussed on the positive, and remain confident in their choices...a place to vent about family pressures...stuff like that.

I've seen parents/family help tremendously with a successful homebirth--and I've seen them exert a lot of pressure to see to it that their grandkids are born in the hospital. Depending on the particular personalities of the parents involved, that pressure might be overt, or it might be covert...but it is there, and generally pretty powerful.

[blissful_maia]

Sometimes I bring up such questions with clients to learn what sort of ideas are forming their perceptions or expectations of birth. For example, a woman who had an emergency C/S and then repeat C/S after that might think that birth is dangerous or abnormal, someone who had homebirths might think it's healthy and normal.

This is one of the reasons I think it is most important to have home births. To pass that understanding on to our female (and male!) children.

[mommy2naomi]

My midwife asked about my mother's and mother-in-law's opinion on birth. She thinks its important to have positive support around you. In my case, my mother isn't supportive and my MIL is totally fine with any decision that I make because she trusts me. The midwife suggested both mothers come to an appointment to meet her so that they could get more comfortable with her and the homebirth. I thought it was very nice for her to do that but I told her that my parents are already freaking out about my not going to see an OB. If I told them about a homebirth, they might call the police or do something else crazy.

[jerawo]

She was curious, especially since my Dad is a doctor and my Mom is a nurse practitioner.

[Eman'smom]

Yeah she asked, like the other posters said, I think it's to gauge support.

[g&a]

Mine asked if we had family support, and we talked about that. She was talking more about postnatal, though, which is probably a good idea to talk about.

On the forms she asked if my mother was supportive of bfing. I didn't know. It was a wierd question. I don't really care if anyone else agrees with me about bfing, especially since this is kid#2, and they know what I think about it. I never asked my mother what she thought.

g.

[sarahn4639]

Never mentioned anything like that.

[Peppamint]

Yeah, my mw asked how my family felt about birth... like pp said, I think to gauge support for my birth plans (and also gauge how I seem to feel about support or lack thereof ).

We never discussed sex.

[BeanyMama]

She did. Asked about my support and relationship with my parents. And about my support system here, friends and such.

[cornpicker]

Mine did not. I can't remember if it came up through our meetings. I know in the beginning she asked why I was interested in homebirth.

[rootzdawta]

No, mine didn't but I can see why a midwife might want to know. I guess if you've chosen to homebirth,though, you're already swimming against the current so whether family support is there or not is probably not going to keep you from birthing at home.

There's the whole psychological aspect though that may affect your ability to birth normally--i.e., does lack of family support or their outright attacks on your decision(s) bother you or upset you enough to make birth difficult. A midwife might be concerned with your mentals messing with your ability to relax and open up. Still, it's up to the pregnant mother to remove all psychological issues (fear, resentment, etc) and allow herself to go for it so asking just kind of alerts the MW that there *may* be some unresolved mental issues that could be a problem.

[laohaire]

Good point from a PP - a midwife should ask this question, but wow, they REALLY should ask if the mother/MIL is supportive of BFing! I don't even know that many people and I know of 2 mothers who DESTROYED their daughter's BFing relationships! (One was laughing as she told me her daugher was small - "an A cup!!!" - and that she told her over and over that she wouldn't be able to BF... and she hid a container of formula and the minute her daughter had a problem she was able to bring it out... and she even got the "I told you so" in. I was completely speechless, I still wish I knew what to say that wouldn't have just destroyed our relationship.)

Anyway, my mother did not do this to me but she wasn't any help either. There was a LOT of tension about this in the beginning. It's even possible that the tension actually did hurt things - because I was so bound to prove that we were doing just fine (while I was worried sick that it wasn't) that I focused my energy on struggling with her than on my worries. And DD was in fact not latched on for DAYS and my poor baby was starving and badly jaundiced. And I had zero help from my mother or midwife. (Thankfully the midwife eventually gave me the number of an LC who absolutely saved us all... I shudder to think what would have happened without her).

Something like that struggle could have happened during the birth, though. I stupidly invited my mother to the birth. It came out ok, but if something had gone wrong, I wonder if I would have spent more energy insisting it was ok than just getting the help I needed.

Aiaiaiaiai the memories!! ARGH!!!!

ETA: I think the midwife was engaged in the same struggle I was. She spent her energy telling me everything was fine when I expressed my worries to her over and over. My baby was very sleepy - I didn't know anything about this then, but she should have! But she picked her up and said, "Does this look like a hungry baby to you??" (meaning, she's sleeping and not crying). God, I wish I could have said "HELL YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" But I didn't know! And then again I did and just didn't have any ideas what to do! Now I know so much better at least.

[ahdoula]

Once the mw established that I was close to my mother she asked how my family felt about the homebirth. It probably wouldn't have gone any farther then that excepts that she found out my dad is an anesthesiologist at the hospital. :That caught her attention!

[Danielle13]

yes she did

[pamamidwife]

I don't ask about what a client's parents think about sex (because, to me, that info is a bit TMI), but I do ask how the relationship is with the parents and how the parents feel about the plans for a homebirth.

[the_lissa]

My mws didn't ask those questions and I would be very put off if they did.

[lilylove]

No, but my mother and I are very close and she has come with me to a lot of my appointments. It's pretty obvious how she feels, so there was no need to ask. If that had not been the case though, I wouldn't have been surprised if she had asked (about childbirth). I see it as relevent.