Guest blog …The Wonder of Home Birth and Overcoming Negative Stigma
Jess from @oyster_and_olive_birth_support has written us a beautiful guest blog post about what brought her to birth work.
I myself, was born at home. 1987, New Year's Eve, my parents getting ready to go to a party.
Fast forward 28 years and there I was, in the Midwife Lead Unit of an inner city hospital, birthing my first baby. It was an 'easy' birth, or so I kept hearing. From floor, to shower, to wheelchair - where I was finally given my new baby to hold, for the first time. Wheeled on to a ward in tears and left alone with curtains open "to help make friends", at 3am. My baby was about 2 hours old. My husband and I hadn't said a word to each other when he was sent home. Hate is a strong word but also a strong emotion. I really hated my experience of giving birth in hospital. I discharged myself, against the Midwife's advice, at 8am. I was there for a total of about 9 hours.
In 2018, 2 years later, I was pregnant with my second daughter. Despite the experience I had in hospital with my first, I ploughed ahead planning a second hospital based birth. In hindsight, this decision makes me really scared. The things we do because of conditioning. Huge decisions we make based on some sort of subliminal or subconscious cultural norm, inherently trodden into us and unquestioned.
I though, was one of the lucky ones. At around 20 weeks pregnant, I met a midwife, Molly, who asked if we would be her guinea-pigs. She was training as a hypnobirthing instructor and needed some live candidates to pass one of her modules.
In our first session we mapped out our birth preferences. She guided us to write down the experience of birthing our first baby then to put each decision into a pros and cons list. She then held this list up against the new set of preferences and revealed that everything we can put into 'cons', featured again on the new list. She suggested a homebirth which I laughed off with an arrogant, "obviously not". She gently pushed it and talked us through exactly what the homebirth could look like. We sat in our living room as she demonstrated how we could use different pieces of furniture. How the midwives could sit in the kitchen meaning they had a view but I would also feel safe and private. How once I'd given birth, I wasn't resigned to cold tea and toast but had the wealth of my own kitchen, filled with my own favourite things. She explained the benefits of being in your own environment, how it would solve logistical worries about transport and childcare. We picked telly programmes and radio stations. Having everything you need to hand, everyone feeling calm and happy and safe. The more she talked, the more obvious it was that this was the perfect option for us. So much so, I was confused why it hadn't been suggested before.
As I started to tell people that we had decided to have a homebirth, I quickly realised that the general consensus had been the same as mine, before we met Molly. From "you're brave" to "that's dangerous, why would you put your baby at risk when you don't have to". When you are pregnant, you often feel like public property anyway. Where people think it's ok to comment on your size and shape, names you like, what you eat. But wow, I hadn't expected such an onslaught of negative opinion. One I still hear all the time. I went to a pregnancy group recently where a mum, hitting 40 weeks, told another mum, who was about 20 weeks, that "obviously you can't have a homebirth with your first, that would be stupid". The second mum looked terrified and I could see her writing a mental note not to have a homebirth - to cross that off the list. My heart sank.
I talked to my mum, who had 4 babies at home on her bed, about our decision and she was thrilled. I asked her why she hadn't suggested it to me or my sisters when we were pregnant and she simply replied that "it was our choice to make".
I hear that, and appreciate the sentiment. But, unfortunately, culturally, we haven't caught up. We need to sing this from the rooftops so more people understand home to be such an incredible place to give birth. We need to push that it's safe, in fact often safer than giving birth in hospital. How a clinical, medical environment works against your body when you're giving birth. Empower people to feel strong and confident in themselves and help them make informed decisions, to know their options. But also, just let them know that it isn't messy - because a small part of me believes that to be one of the main reasons why people don't want to do it!
It was what I learnt with Molly that really pushed me into birth work. Knowing that one caring and informed person could completely change my whole outlook on birth was inspiring. Working with her made me feel confident, listened to and excited to give birth.
Now I am a trained Doula, I am making it my mission to help birthing people fully understand all their options and support their decisions. Asking the right questions and encouraging an open-minded approach is at the fore-front of how I work. This is not to say I only support people who want to give birth at home - far from it - but I think it is really important to offer information on all different types of birth because it is impossible to make an informed decision or choice, without all the information in your hands. As your Doula, you, and your birth, are my priority.
You can find Jess here https://www.oysterandolivebirthsupport.com/ and she’s listed on our doula directory as well!