Have you or anyone you know birthed a baby in a non-hospital setting, and if so, what was the experience like? Do you think the author's descriptions were accurate?
Created: 12/26/15
Replies: 12
Join Date: 10/15/10
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Join Date: 03/03/12
Posts: 251
I gave birth to my last child in 1974 in the hospital, as I did the previous births. I opted for natural childbirth after my first delivery. I have met women who opted for home birth and described it as a positive experience. I also worked with a woman who was a practicing midwife and she loved that part of her life.
Join Date: 04/21/11
Posts: 281
A dear friend gave birth to her 2nd child at home in the early-60s--by herself as she was in labor such a short time without help. She always said it was the easiest birth of her four, altho surely it wasn't planned. She had her others in the hospital.
Join Date: 01/23/15
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Join Date: 05/12/11
Posts: 232
My mother was a midwife and I can recall people coming to get her for the birth of children. I was left at home with my sister. So I didn't know anything about the experience. My mother certainly was not as "free thinking" as Grace. We never had any discussions about what she did.
Join Date: 10/12/11
Posts: 256
Join Date: 07/29/14
Posts: 62
All 3 of my babies were delivered in a hospital but my grandmother told me she delivered her 4 children, including my mother, at home and had no problems with any of them. I forget if she said whether a midwife was involved but I imagine someone must have been there with her at the time. At least I hope so!
Join Date: 04/21/11
Posts: 281
When considering this question I'd not thought that of course my mother was born at home on the ranch. I don't know if there were any birthing attendents, but she told the story of being premature. After birth she was wrapped and put into a shoe box and placed in the warmed open oven of the wood stove. She lived to be 89 years old.
Join Date: 12/03/11
Posts: 276
Thinking of modern times, rather than my mother's and grandmother's generation in which home births were the norm, I have had a few friends and relatives who gave birth either at home or in a birthing center and all reported a positive experience.
Join Date: 10/15/10
Posts: 3442
We moved to the US when I was six months pregnant with our first child. If we'd stayed in the UK I could easily have had a home birth, a fair number of my friends did and some chose to have water births with a birthing pool provided by the National Health Service.
If we'd stayed in the UK, I think I would have opted for a hospital birth but with a midwife. I'd been meeting with the midwife every month for at least three months before we left (every two weeks I'd have an appointment alternating between doctor and midwife, and I kept my medical records in between - unlike in the US when I handed my medical records over at my first appointment and never saw them again!)
In the US I never contemplated a home birth. I doubt our health insurance would have allowed it, and even if it had I would have been extremely nervous about the potential out of pocket costs if I had had to be transported to the hospital in an emergency, whereas that was all covered on the NHS.
Join Date: 09/22/11
Posts: 102
Yes when I lived in a commune one woman spoke lovingly of the births of her children & had photo's of the birth. This was in what seems to be the olden days before video cameras.. computers, phones that do everything......
Join Date: 01/19/16
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Join Date: 06/11/14
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