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used to feel homebirth was best... but not anymore

17K views 245 replies 88 participants last post by  UnassistedMomma 
#1 ·
i realize what i'm about to say is against the mdc prevailing thought .. and i have great respect for mdc and learned more here than anywhere else, been supported more here than anywhere else. i've wanted to post for months but always chickened out because i'm sure someone will get angry and i don't feel strong enough right now after what happened. but i think it's important that i say this. it might save a life.

all my life - well since 14 when i saw my first h/b - i've thought h/b is the way to go, avoiding all the bad things that can happen in hospitals, the cascade of interventions, the fights over 'it's our policy do do this and that' and so on.

so when i was pregnant i devoured ina may's books, michael odent, websites on homebirth, practised hypnobirthing, planned to use water and tubs in labor, read everything about relaxation, normal course of labor, complications, scientific studies on safety and so on (i'm married to a doc,) found a midwife i thought i gelled with - a very experienced woman for sure. paid out of pocket for her services as my insurance wouldn't cover it. i felt with every inch of my body that i did not want interventions and that i wanted to be left alone to find my own rhythm of birth, without being told 'you must do this or that, it's been X hours, yadayada' i also strongly strongly felt i did not want any drugs in my baby and as you know, labor drugs pass the placenta and we don't know the long term effects of this.

so this is what happened and why i don't feel having a baby outside a hospital is worth the risk if you want to have the best chance to go home alive and with a healthy baby..BUT hear me out and read why and what i think the solution is.. until we have a third choice.

i had a completely normal pregnancy. labor started with one intense excruciating contraction that went on and on, then stopped for a few minutes then started again. i was in terrible pain, couldn't speak, tried to crawl to the shower, hypnotherapy didn't work, nothing did. i was 1cm dil. i said i had to go to the hospital as i felt something was wrong. the m/w said i was acting as though i had the pain of transition. but i was 1cm.

we went to the hospital, a 15 min car ride, and to cut a long story short i had an epidural shortly after as morphine didn't work. pain was off the charts. yes i know older studies suggested early epidurals increase the chance of c section. newer studies have refuted this.

the rest of labor was uneventful, apart from me feeling a bit of a failure. after 24 hours of so of labor, eventually had pitocin because stalled at 4, a well placed epidural that allowed me to walk around so i could try to make him descend. no progression. eventually talk of c section as the baby's heart was slowing periodically (yes a known cause of pit augmentation but that could not have caused what happened next.. so don't jump at me :)

c section, baby was apgar 9/9 and in excellent health and weight

as soon as he was out i started hemorrhaging. badly. within seconds. the docs were not tugging on the placenta, (i.e. they didn't cause it.. my husband was watching) but the blood was gushing out from around where the placenta was and the plac was partly stuck too deeply and partly coming off in chunks as they watched. i lost 4 (i think) liters of blood (some of the stuff they put in me came right out) had many units of tranfused blood and other assorted stuff, by a miracle they saved the uterus (ask me how if you're interested), i passed out from lack of blood (bp was something like 50/30 at one point) for a few secs. this bleeding happened in the space of 5 minutes immediately after birth, all from where the placenta was attached.

i was taken to the ICU and didn't see my son till day 2 - though i'm happy to report that breastfeeding was great when i started and it continued till he was a year. no probs with that at all. i had further transfusions and was sent home after a week. my diagnosis was formally 'placenta accreta', meaning the placenta was embedded too deeply into the uterus. (necessarily a clinical diagnosis i.e. from what they saw and what happened, as i still had my uterus so they could not slice that up to look at the structure of it. however the placental side strongly suggested accreta because of cellular abnormalities and other things (ask if interested)

most women lose their uterus with this, about 10-20% die (check the stats, i'm doing this from memory). you can lose most of the blood in your body in 5-10 minutes. so it was a blessing that i was in an OR when this happened and that i had insisted on going to the hospital. i can't claim great foresight.. i just felt that labors do not start with excruciating pain at 1cm dilation.

i was VERY lucky. i am very lucky to be alive. i can say with all honesty that if he had been born at home i would likely be dead because of how quickly i lost so much blood. accreta is happening more and more as women have more c sections and thus have more scar tissue where the placenta can dig in too deep, but i'd never had a c section.

my point is this.. there are some obstetric emergencies that can kill you wherever you are but you stand a much better chance in the hospital. one of these is accreta, another is amniotic fluid embolism (the biggest killer of women in birth. i had a mild form of this too), another is a ruptured uterus (yes you have warning sometimes that this is happening, but sometimes it's sudden and the baby would die before you were able to get to the hospital.) and that's not to mention sudden problems with the baby that can happen.

these things are RARE, very rare, incredibly rare (i think accreta is something like 1/60,000 births) BUT if you are in a hospital you have a greater chance of living and to my mind it's just not worth the risk to stay home.

in the complications i listed above there's sadly nothing you can do at a homebirth - manually compressing the uterus to stop bleeding would not have stopped it in my case (the docs had the whole uterus in their hands and squeezing like crazy.. nothing..), in the case of amniotic fluid embolism you need massive interventions, will prob go into cardiac arrest in seconds and even in a hospital some 60-70% of women die. it happens randomly, no way of knowing if it'll be you.

now, having said that.. i think what is lacking in most cities is a 'third way', a place run by midwives (san francisco had st lukes'..futon on floor, candles, tubs etc) in a hospital but allowing a homebirth birth with all the best that a midwife can provide, the emotional support, handholding, experience with normal births and so on, BUT with emergency life support measures in the building if needed in those rare rare cases. (but it could be you remember)

so where does that leave most women who don't want to sign up for a medicalized birth in a hospital yet have nowhere else to do this but home.

i think for now.. until there are more 'homebirth in hospital' type places, the safest choice is hospital BUT i believe it's also the responsibility of every woman to prepare herself by reading and studying and asking questions about all the things a hospital will want to do and how you can refuse those you don't think are necessary, and by having a doula or support person who can be firm about what you want and don't want, thus allowing you to focus on birthing as naturally as you can.

we don't need to choose the hospital and just throw up our hands and be helpless and feel that the process is out of our hands. it isn't - WE are still in control and making decisions, or at least we should be.

i think we should spend more time learning and thinking about birth than choosing a car.. yet it seems the opposite at times.

i think if hospitals weren't so pushy with routine things, if they provided more choice in the things that can make a difference between a relaxed, happy mom managing her own birth and a woman who is 'delivered of a baby' as the victorians used to say, then we wouldn't see the high c section rates and all the birth interventions that are often neither necessary nor helpful. (i suspect liability fears are at the base of many interventions.. you'll get sued for not doing something but not for doing it) but there's no reason we have to have any of these things done to us.

there's no real reason why midwives shouldn't work in hospitals as they would in a woman's home, why hospitals shouldn't have all the things that make for a good safe birth. i believe that birth is a natural, normal event and that is should be supported by people who know the natural event best - midwives - but that the safety net should be there, just as you probably would choose to use safety measures in any other activity in life, if they were available.

well i'm an idealist and i also know that birth is a business.. it costs more to have more nurses looking after a women 1:1 rather than one nurse at the nurses' station monitoring contractions of 15 women via electronic fetal monitoring. sure - and that's probably why my ideal solution isn't happening in many places. BUT we can get as close as possible by bringing in our own doula and/or midwife who does give us 1:1 care and knows what to look out for and knows the type of encouragement we need. we can do this. we can also visit hospitals in advance and know the layout, ask questions, decide if hosp A or B is best, lobby for this 'third choice' when talking with our Obs or with the hospital authorities themselves. it's a business remember, so they would hopefully respond to market demand :)

we can say no to routine interventions we believe are unnecessary, but we have to be informed, know what we are saying no to and realize that life is fragile and it is, in my opinion, not worth risking the life of one mother when such a risk is not necessary.

a mom.
 
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#2 ·
Im sorry you had a bad experience. If you look at the statistics of wonderful experiences with homebirth though, your far outnumbered. Homebirth in a normal, healhty pregnancy is as safe as a hospital birth. Generally people know they have accreta before they give birth, as it usually poses problems before hand.

I dont wanna be mean, but unfortnatly I dont think your going to get alot of lovey posts out of this. Homebirth should be an option, it is a very good, safe option in most cases. That is up to every women to decide, and we have all heard the horror stories, and still stick by our choices.
 
#3 ·
i just wanted to correct one thing you say. accreta is *not* diagnosable before delivery in most cases. you may ask your doctor about this. MRI can detect some very obvious cases.

in the case of sudden rare emergencies, home birth is riskier than hospital birth, i don't think that's up for discussion. i'm not disputing that hospital interventions *cause* many complications, but that's another topic

and of course each woman has the right to decide what level of risk she is comfortable with. my post was my opinion, not telling people what i think is best for them.

peace :)
 
#4 ·
Its a rare case when it is riskier, even for me, after 2 csections, I feel it is safer at home
For thousands of years women had babies at home.

Symptoms of Placental Abruption
The symptoms of placental abruption include:

vaginal bleeding in the third trimester
uterine pain or tenderness
abdominal pain
 
#5 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Lovemy3babies View Post
I dont wanna be mean, but unfortnatly I dont think your going to get alot of lovey posts out of this. Homebirth should be an option, it is a very good, safe option in most cases. That is up to every women to decide, and we have all heard the horror stories, and still stick by our choices.
:

First I do want to say that I am sorry for your experience. My first birth was traumatic as well, I do empathize with you.

The way I see it, you listened to your gut, and that's a very valuable thing. You felt something was very wrong, insisted that there was something not right, and went to the hospital. I haven't met any women who would do otherwise. Your point is moot, IMO.

Your ideal, while I wish existed so women would have more choice, isn't reality. I "fought" for a good second hospital birth, did all of my "birth planning" and didn't get it. They fought me back, all the way through my post partum hours. I was on medicaid, and too poor to even think of hiring a doula.

Now I'm looking forward to my third homebirth.
 
#6 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Lovemy3babies View Post
Its a rare case when it is riskier, even for me, after 2 csections, I feel it is safer at home
For thousands of years women had babies at home.

Symptoms of Placental Abruption
The symptoms of placental abruption include:

vaginal bleeding in the third trimester
uterine pain or tenderness
abdominal pain
Not jumping into the dialogue (I had a homebirth and will again)... but just to make sure folks are on the same page... Placental abruption is not the same as placental accreta (sp?) which is where the placenta actually grows into/through the uterus itself, rather than "latching on" to the inside. Not reasonably diagnosable beforehand.

my med student friend saw a few of these in her ob/gyn rotation, and they ain't pretty....
 
#7 ·
Abruption is different from accreta. In fact, they're almost opposites, since abruption is a separation and accreta is an abnormal attachment.

Studies show that for low-risk women, mortality rates are not reduced with hospital birth compared to home birth.

A feeling of intuition by the mom that the hospital is where she needs to go, is commonly regarded here as the best of all reasons for her to decide not to stay at home in labor, and is also seen as a critical component of the safety of homebirth. Many of us here would say that your story illustrates why planning a homebirth is safe, not why it is unsafe.
 
#8 ·


I applaud your bravery and your honesty. It is important for people to know exactly what the risks of home birth are, and I'm glad that you're here and unafraid to tell us your experience, which must have been such a trial for you. We are all lucky that you're still here!!


Anyway, you are right. You do stand a better chance of surviving these things in hospitals. Hospitals have the ability cure more problems than they cause. There are many reasons to avoid the hospital, too, though.

There is too much of a mentality around that if you can't give birth at home then you are a failure, which simply isn't true. If you transfer to the hospital I believe that makes you a sensible and responsible and excellent person to make that kind of decision for your health! There are many reasons why people avoid the hospital, though, and you cannot discount those reasons.

I don't believe that births should start in the hospital. Many are safer to end there, but they all should begin at home. My motto is not "trust birth" but "give birth a chance!"


Until that euphoric third choice exists, women must choose one side or the other. Many different factors affect the safety of birth, I don't pretend to know them all. Home birth should always be available as a safe option.

Again, thank you for your post!
 
#9 ·
Quote:
Studies show that for low-risk women, mortality rates are not reduced with hospital birth compared to home birth.
There are no studies that show this. A "study" cannot prove a negative. There are no studies that show that either hospitals or home birth reduce mortality.
 
#10 ·
yes for thousands of years women had babies at home (we're all descended from women who birthed successfully or we wouldn't be here.. :) )

and it was accepted as inevitable that women died in childbirth too and many did. there is nothing wrong with women's bodies that we need such high c section rates and so on, but there is a lot wrong with how births are handled in hospitals, but i don't think personally that doing without the safety net is the best response to that.

at the same time i think it's just as important to manage a birth in hospital with as much strength and determination as you would at home.ie knowing what you want, knowing what is safe and unsafe and listening to that inner voice.

i feel having help nearby is important for those unexpected, undiagnosable (i've only talked about 3 emergencies but there are others) things. we can control how we handle a birth in hospital, but we can't control what happens in these emergencies.

and i know they are rare and most docs will prob see few in their lives, but the consequences can be soo sad.. i mean a dead mother, a kid who never knows his mom. that it has changed my mind about homebirths. you coudn't get a stronger advocate for homebirths than me before the reality of life's fragility was brought home to me very sharply.

i'm writing this - and it's been very difficult to write it, i'm still suffering from the effects of this birth and i hate to say what i feel i should say about homebirth but having been so close to death i am not the person i was and so aware of how such an event can happen to anyone. i suppose i'm trying to say look beyond the statistics of 'what is safe in 99% of cases' and think would you be comfortable with the consequences on you or your family if that 1% chance happens to you.

i haven't spoken of this very much since my son was born. it's been too hard.
 
#11 ·
Sorry for the post-a-thon.

Just as an anecdote...

When I was interviewing my midwife, I asked her what the most serious complication she ever dealt with was. She had a woman with a placenta accreta at home, 20 minutes away from a hospital. She said that it was, "a humbling and terrifying experience." She didn't go into details, but she stabilized the woman while the ambulance arrived. Luckily, mama and baby were fine. You can survive an accreta at home, I guess, but you need someone with medical experience there to help you and stabilize you at the VERY least.
 
#12 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by JesseMomme View Post
The way I see it, you listened to your gut, and that's a very valuable thing. You felt something was very wrong, insisted that there was something not right, and went to the hospital. I haven't met any women who would do otherwise. Your point is moot, IMO.
That was my thought too. I am planning a homebirth but I'm very close to a good hospital and would have no issues going to it in the event I felt something was going wrong. For me personally, I would be less inclined to homebirth if the hospital weren't so close. I like having "plan B" readily available.
 
#13 ·
thanks for the encouragement. part of the reason i haven't written about this is i know i'll get attacked - i'm going against the grain here but i really feel it is important to say and i'm not a pro-drugs, knock me out cut it out type of person at all.. pretty feral overall :)

i think another important question is

is a woman giving birth at home because she wants to avoid the fights over 'routine procedures' she might encounter at the hospital

(because with preparation you can avoid those fights and have someone help you. to the person who couldn't afford the doula, here in SF there are lots of free doula programs, from doulas who are learning and need the experience to get certification. and i'm sorry to hear of yet another hospital birth that was badly handled emotionally by a hospital - from the sounds of it the writer was incredibly strong so kudos. i also think there are some unusually mean people working in some L&D... (as well as some saints..)

2/
or is she strongly drawn to her home, her nest as the best place for birth.

my ideal of a homebirth was actually out in the wild, by the ocean, alone, maybe holding a tree during contractions, walking, hearing the surges of the waves. i used that image a lot when preparing with hypnobirthing (which can have amazing amazing results. i suspect my accreta prob made the labor too painful from the start so it didn't work, but i know hypnobirthing can make for beautiful births and encourage anyone to try!)
 
#14 ·
Quote:
The way I see it, you listened to your gut, and that's a very valuable thing. You felt something was very wrong, insisted that there was something not right, and went to the hospital. I haven't met any women who would do otherwise. Your point is moot, IMO.
This is exactly what I was thinking as I read the story. This is a story that supports homebirth. OP, you felt something was wrong and you transferred. In fact, your body gave you good clues that something was wrong. How does this make homebirth any less safe?

Additionally, who's to say that everyone has a good outcome with accreta - even if they ARE in the hospital? In your case, they were doing everything they could, yet it wasn't working so it still seems that it is only through the grace of god/luck/whatever you want to call it, that got you through it alive. Wouldn't you say?

And of course the flip side of this is, how many extremely rare but life-threatening situations occur as a result of being in the hospital? I think you could point out a number of things which happen purely as a result of having been in the hospital, that happen 1 in 60,000. Like acquiring an infection that significantly debilitates or kills the mom or baby. No one (well, except us maybe
) tries to say that a hospital is a dangerous place to have a baby because of those extremely rare things.

Edited to add: hopefully you don't see this as attacking you! It must have been an awful and scary situation for you, and I'm really happy for you that you trusted your intuition and had a midwife you respected you!
 
#15 ·
yeah, i agree not all accretas result in as quick and massive blood loss as mine. some placentas just sit there and won't detach and you have lots of time to get to the hosp and a good midwife knows not to tug away like you're pulling a cow on a rope.. :)

i'm glad your friend was fine, it sounds like she had an excellent midwife. however.. sometimes blood loss is so great there's no time, there was almost no time to get the fluids in me despite being in an OR - there's no way i would have made it despite being about 15 mins fast driving to a hospital.

who would have thought.. it's ironic that it had to happen to me when i was planning to homebirth..

all i felt was 'something's wrong' and of course mindblowing pain. the midwife, knowing i wanted to birth at home, suggested i stick it out, saying 'you're having a baby it will hurt' but i knew, i knew that it was not normal to not be dilated and be in such agony. each contraction i was saying in my mind 'this has to be the last one without pain relief' . and i was as 1cm. so of course i felt like wuss getting there and asking for an epidural at 1cm.. of course i did :) i have pretty high pain tolerance and there i was.. ack.!

anyway i digress..
 
#16 ·
i have a few thoughts.
first, i am thankful that you and your baby are both here and healthy.
i can understand how your traumatic experience is making you second guess your well researched opinion to plan a homebirth. but your birth sounds to me like a perfect example the safety net that hospitals do already provide. you went to the hospital as soon as things deviated from the heathy, normal pregnancy you'd been having. you listened to your body. you, thankfully, thankfully, made it to your safety net with 24 hours to spare.

when i was 30 weeks pregnant with my daughter i was talking with a midwife who i was interviewing to be my doula for the upcoming hospital birth. i was talking about how i wanted to stay home as long as possible, and she sort of clued into me and said, "it sounds like you sort of want to accidentally have a homebirth." i admitted that i did. "if you want to have a homebirth you should probably plan one;" she said, "if the baby falls out at home, great. if not you go to the hospital." i talked about my fears, the what ifs, the rare, rare, rare, but terrible things that could go wrong. she looked at me with the sweetest most loving eyes and said the most terrible thing. she said, "there is no guarantee; even at the hospital."
my sweet baby fell out at home a few months later. she'll be five next week.
your baby didn't fall out of you at home.
and you are both alive.
and i am so sad that i know mamas who have had babies die. at home. in the hospital. perfect beautiful babies.
and i am so grateful that i had this knowledge that birth itself is a risk. pregnancy is a risk. i feel so blessed to have approached my births in this cloud of gracious appreciation for normal (tempered by an ever watchful eye toward deviation form that norm). i feel like i have been let onto the greatest secret of the world; that every time a new life passes out of it's mother and stares her in the face it is a freaking miracle - be it two days after a c-section or two seconds after mamas hands bring you to the surface of the blow up fishy pool.
i feel the same pain and sense of a gasping for breath in your voice as i often do reading about mamas who have been emotionally or physically mauled by their hospital experiences. your profound relief is mirrored by scarred women who desperately wish they never set foot in a hospital. or never met the hb midwife who lied to them, or never ignored that sinking feeling, or just scheduled a c/s at 39 weeks. if only, if only. birth can be so scary. you are right, there is so much work to be done so that all women have safe birth choices and can make those choices with the least amount of "if onlys".
home birth is statistically safe, but it is so much safer to me than that.

i hope you have found some peace by being able to tell your story.

(i hope this isn't too disjointed, i keep running off to nurse my sleeping son...)
 
#17 ·
This is exactly what I was thinking as I read the story. This is a story that supports homebirth. OP, you felt something was wrong and you transferred. In fact, your body gave you good clues that something was wrong. How does this make homebirth any less safe?

because some things happen *without warning*.

i feel the accreta and the initial pain were connected but of course i have no proof.

the accreta could have happened without warning after the baby was born, with amniotic fluid embolism there is *no* warning (google it, it's upsetting for me to remember and i had a mild case.. quickly recognized and corrected by an amazing anesthesiologist) and i was in the OR already. usually within seconds a woman goes from normal to collapse. within seconds. and you have seconds or minutes to stop her going into cardiac arrest and all the other bad things.
"
Additionally, who's to say that everyone has a good outcome with accreta - even if they ARE in the hospital? In your case, they were doing everything they could, yet it wasn't working so it still seems that it is only through the grace of god/luck/whatever you want to call it, that got you through it alive. Wouldn't you say?"
---
no, and i'm not saying that - please read my post carefully. i'm saying you would have a better chance in a hospital in the case of sudden serious problems. i'm not saying being in a hospital guarantees your survival.

''
And of course the flip side of this is, how many extremely rare but life-threatening situations occur as a result of being in the hospital? I think you could point out a number of things which happen purely as a result of having been in the hospital, that happen 1 in 60,000. Like acquiring an infection that significantly debilitates or kills the mom or baby. No one (well, except us maybe ) tries to say that a hospital is a dangerous place to have a baby because of those extremely rare things.

''

of course and i say that in my post too. i say that hospitals often cause more probs than they solve in the case or those overmanaged births.. (and i'm with you all in that birth isn't a medical condition in my opinion. )BUT.. in the case of an emergency you want the hospital there.

Edited to add: hopefully you don't see this as attacking you! It must have been an awful and scary situation for you, and I'm really happy for you that you trusted your intuition and had a midwife you respected you!

not at all and thank you.. actually she went with us but wasn't that supportive. i insisted on going. i think she didn't know what to make of what was happening. i remember at one point as we were leaving she felt my abdomen (as a contraction was ending so it was not that tense) and declared that the contractions weren't very strong (implicit is so how could they hurt).. the contraction was almost over but i still couldn't speak from the pain so i didn't say anything.

i'm all for healthy discussion..
 
#18 ·
Always act on an intuition when it tells you that something's wrong.
Never act on an intuition when it tells you that everything is okay.

Like my Grandfather said.. "Never trust anyone who says 'just trust me.'"


Interesting thing about that is... "Just trust me," are always the words coming out of doctors' and nurses' mouths.


Pannacotta- If you put your :) smilies the other way, they will make the graphic smiley.

aileen- What a beautiful post! You really described what I was talking about with there being many different factors that affect the safety of birth. I would not say, however, that it is statistically safe. I would say that it's "not been proven to be statistically unsafe," but I am a stickler for these kinds of things. Anyway, thank you for the beautiful post.
 
#19 ·
there is no guarantee; even at the hospita

agreed and i do say that in the OP. but my point is you have a better chance (not risk free. no birth is risk free, crossing the road is not risk free!) simply because some things need massive interventions. in past centuries women just died, it was accepted that certain things that happened in birth would kill you. now we have a safety net - shouldn't we use it while managing it very very carefully so it doesn't smother us :)

i'm very glad you had a good homebirth. i'm still addicted to watching homebirth videos on youtube..they are so sweeeet!! and i'm so happy every time i see the mother hold her baby for the first time.

but remember also that because it went well for you, as it does for the vast majority of women, doesn't mean that it's ok all the time. things can go wrong in a hospital just as at home (more so if you let the suckers tick off all their list of interventions !) but in the case of serious unexpected complications, being where there is help, an OR, blood, anesthesia *can* (not *will*, but *can* increase your chances of living and of your baby living. a sudden abruption (rupture of uterus = baby stops getting oxygen in seconds) can kill a baby quicker than it takes to get to a hospital for example.

i was really reluctant to post my story here tonight, maybe i should not have, it's traumatic to relive it (i still have flashbacks and ptsd), but if it can save one life it's worth it.

remem i'm talking about really rare events, but you just don't know if they'll happen to you. statistically you're more likely to be in the 99% where everything turns out fine. but that 1% is still there, it's gotta happen to someone. i never would have thought it would have happened to me. i feel like those people you see on TV after a fire or other disaster.. they always say 'this is such a quiet place, i never would have thought it would happen here" and we're at home watching them thinking oh i can't imagine it happening to me.. but you're out there in some unknown town..it's sad, but you're a stranger and these things happen to strangers dont' they.. don't they..

sorry for my bad typing and thanks for your posts. i'm off to bed now ...
gnight everyone..
 
#20 ·
do you think that the extreme pain you were experiencing was because of the accreta? with placental tissue invading too deeply into your muscle layers- it seems that it could not only cause more pain but also abnormal contraction patterns as well. Did you have AFE or DIC? extreme loss of blood volume can cause DIC.
 
#21 ·
Quote:
Additionally, who's to say that everyone has a good outcome with accreta - even if they ARE in the hospital? In your case, they were doing everything they could, yet it wasn't working so it still seems that it is only through the grace of god/luck/whatever you want to call it, that got you through it alive. Wouldn't you say?"
---
no, and i'm not saying that - please read my post carefully. i'm saying you would have a better chance in a hospital in the case of sudden serious problems. i'm not saying being in a hospital guarantees your survival.

I *did* read your post carefully. Looking back on my post, I realize I wasn't totally clear, but I was asking "wouldn't you say" to the part about them doing everything they could with you.

Yes, you did say that in case of a few, extremely rare, extremely serious, emergencies, you are better off in a hospital, but that ultimately there is no guarantee. I think pretty much everyone here would agree with that. I also think that many of us here would say, "because of a few rare and extremely serious situations, which are actually caused by being in the hospital, you are much better off at home."

I am truly sorry for your experience, and I'm glad there are posters like aileen who can really say something kind and beautiful. However, to me your story does not mean hospitals are safer for giving birth; it just doesn't. It's all about the risk that any individual woman is willing to take. Obviously, as you were getting at in your post, the ideal would be to have a birth place where no risk is introduced, yet extreme emergency care is readily available. Personally, I just don't think this is possible - something close to it, maybe, and I do fantasize about this very thing sometimes! But in the meantime, I'll take the risk and continue to have my kids out of hospital.
 
#22 ·
ok very last reply b4 bed.. :)

i had afe (mild afe) - acute hypotension (b/p 50/30 i think, acute hypoxia (face was turning blue, felt couldn't breathe, suffocating), some coagulopathy which might have been DIC from hemorrhage (i don't remember exactly what the coagulopathy was.. apart form the obvious 'why won't she stop bleeding..') but was corrected pretty quickly by an amazing anesthesiologist.

i suspect the pain was related to accreta but have no evidence. i've done a bit of research into this (web, asking obgyns etc) and the conclusions seem to be two 1/ accreta is rare and not many studies on it- at least no studies saying extreme pain in early labor suggestive of accreta and 2/the experts i talked to suggested that 'unusual pain in early labor often suggests underlying probs'

but again no evidence.. i'd love to dive into some hospital database and see if there's a connection. !
 
#23 ·
i love your 'i love this thread i think i'm going to live here..' tag line.. made me laugh..

i find all the responses interesting too but the whole topic is scary too.. i kind of posted originally as a kind of 'public service' message - (kind of read this as another opinion while you decide what birth you want) i'm just an average mom and not important except as an flesh n blood example of that scary 1%


now i'm really off to bed..

ok i'm trying to do smiley's the other way round as suggested.. :)
 
#24 ·
ok let me ask something i've been thinking about..

if such a place - totally homebirth like place - existed *within* a hospital (same floor as regular L&D), staffed by midwives, with tubs, showers, soft lighting, family members allowed, birth balls, massage, music, no compulsory limits on stages of labor, no 'routine ivs' no ban on food and drink etc ..whatever you would have at homebirth you have it here..just not in the 4 walls of your home

would you birth there?

getting back to my earlier question do most of you choose h/b because
a/ you want to avoid the bad things associated with hospitals

or b/ you're drawn to birthing in your home, in your nest, like you might be drawn to chocolate and cheese as a pregnancy craving.
 
#25 ·
pannacotta - your baby is lucky to have you.
not just because you made it through such a harrowing birth, but because you are thorough and passionate and open minded and brave.
and i think it's important that you posted your story. for you and for mamas who read it. i think you very well may save a life (imagine if there is a accreta/pain connection and now we are all more aware of it..)
i hope you sleep well after talking about it; i hope it doesn't make your mind race too much.

and holothuroidea, i love a stickler.
how's this? homebirth is not statistically unsafe, but it is so much more not statistically unsafe to me.
 
#26 ·
Here's another lovey post from me! I'm really sorry you had such a traumatic birth experience, and I think you were very brave to write about it - it must have been tough! I had a bad first birth experience because of severe hemorrhages too, so I can sympathise.

I think you're right that your "third alternative" should exist everywhere! I am so sad every time I read about American MDC mothers who are in a horrible pinch because of not wanting the interventions of the hospital, but really not feeling 100 % sure about a homebirth.

My second birth was a wonderful unplanned and unassisted homebirth, so I completely agree that a normal homebirth is about the most wonderful experience anyone can possibly have. But not everybody feels comfortable planning a homebirth, so there should be a good alternative available.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pannacotta View Post
well i'm an idealist and i also know that birth is a business.. it costs more to have more nurses looking after a women 1:1 rather than one nurse at the nurses' station monitoring contractions of 15 women via electronic fetal monitoring. sure - and that's probably why my ideal solution isn't happening in many places.
It is happening in a lot of places! It is the norm in Norway, and England too, as far as I know - and probably many European countries.

My third birth was a hospital birth in Norway's biggest hospital. I had a midwife assigned, as do everybody here, the doctor only turns up if something unusual happens, like hemorrhage, or to deliver the head of a breech baby. There's no electronc monitoring of the baby unless necessary, so I had none of that. I had a big room with a big birthing tub, a sofa, plants, a baby bed (which was very strange to look at), etc. I had no vaginal "fiddling" during the birth, I didn't want any unnecessary checking of dilation, which means I didn't have any at all. At the end I checked a bit myself, out of curiosity, but the midwife didn't seem like she thought it was necessary to do very much at all, except try to help me find positions that were comfortable. It was an extremely painful birth compared to my first two, and I asked for pain relief relatively soon, which I could have, since we were in a hospital. I also hemorrhaged badly and suddenly - the placenta was stuck - but help was immediately available without having to drive anywhere.

In my opinion this is close to the best of both worlds - as few interventions as possible, but help in immediate proximity for those who need or feel that they need it.

But giving birth in a hospital is absolutely free here, so it's maybe not business?

Quote:

Originally Posted by pannacotta View Post
if such a place - totally homebirth like place - existed *within* a hospital (same floor as regular L&D), staffed by midwives, with tubs, showers, soft lighting, family members allowed, birth balls, massage, music, no compulsory limits on stages of labor, no 'routine ivs' no ban on food and drink etc ..whatever you would have at homebirth you have it here..just not in the 4 walls of your home

would you birth there?
Yes, that is available in Norwegian hospitals, and that's what I chose.
 
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