Re:British Regulator Urges Home Births Over Hospitals for Un...
by lemming on Wednesday December 17, 2014 @04:36AM
(#8761695)
The midwife waited much longer than I would consider safe with the information I have now - at the time we had no idea of how bad the long term consequences could be, we just knew it was agonising for my wife but everyone always goes on about how painful childbirth is so we had no idea what was normal. We later had an appointment with our attending obstetrician to go over our case notes, and she said that midwives with a stronger focus on natural childbirth will often leave mothers pushing for longer than a hospital or more "conventional" midwife would.
Then getting rushed to hospital takes longer than you'd think - 45 mins end to end for us, and we live in a small town. Once there my wife was assessed for risk, the ob/gyn came about 30 mins later because there didn't seem to be any immediate danger for her, then there's a protocol to be followed before any intervention takes place - it all adds up to a surprisingly long time.
Congratulations on your second child, I'm glad that went well and that your wife has recovered - that's really great.
Note that hospital deliveries can also have complications. Due to high blood pressure, my wife had to deliver our first child in the hospital[0], and under the care of the hospital, rather than the midwife[1]. She spent 17 hours in labour, and only after pushing for 2 hours did the hospital's midwife discover that the baby was stuck, which I suspect was a serious fuck up; only after I insisted that they figure out how the baby progressed, did they discover it had been stuck this whole time. While the caesarean team was preparing, the hospital's midwife managed to deliver the baby with a pump. My wife spent the next two years walking like an elderly person due to instability of the pelvis. Fortunately she eventually recovered, and she's in a much better condition now, a few weeks after delivering our second child.
[0] I'm Dutch; home births are the standard here. [1] Our second child was delivered in the hospital but under the care of the midwife; home birth was not an option due to the complications with the first pregnancy.