Docs recommend home births

I don't know, but it worked out great for me, my mother gave birth to me at home.

 

This "recommendation" sounds like a desperate plea for the patient load of their socialized health-care be lessened!

 

That might seem to be the case at first glance, but three things go against such an idea:

First, such a recommendation would do nothing to lessen the "patient load" of the National Health Service. Maybe you read the link too quickly, because the recommendation is not simply that "more women give birth at home", but that "more women give birth at home with the help of a midwife." Midwives are paid for by the National Health Service.

Second, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is a professional body, and makes all sorts of recommendations regarding obstetrics and gynaecology, but does not "hold the purse strings" of the National Health Service. If you go to the news page of its web site, you will see that most of its recommendations have implications of cost increase.

Thirdly, your view seems to ignore the fact that there would be increased costs involved if health professionals were to be sent out to individual homes for births. There would be extra time and fuel costs in travelling (and remember, petrol/gas is much more expensive here than in America). Then there would need to be more midwives available, each with the necessary medical training, and equipment.

No, it is not a money-saving idea.

 

I doubt midwifes cost the same as doctors. I doubt doing it at home costs the same as a hospital.

 

I am sure a doctor's salary is greater than a midwife's, but there are midwives working in hospitals, not only at home births. And a doctor would be called in the case of compolications, whether in a home birth or a hospital birth.

But more importantly, the body who made the recommendations, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, is not in the business of cost-cutting. If anything, it is the other way round - they would want to encourage the "powers that be" to devote more money to the fields of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

 

With the mess that is Great Britain's healthcare system...I'm not sure I'd bother taking any recommendation they give.

 

I had the benefit of a midwife who worked with a doctor and in the hospital. She came to my home and she also came to the hospital.

Home-birthing may be great, but it also is wise to have paramedics on stand-by for that choice. I've personally come across two situations which contributed to feeling as if home-births without being in close range of a hospital and without paramedics, in this age of technology, can be foolish:

1. A friend of mine. She had three healthy children, all born at home. Her fourth was born with some minor issue. I forget what it was, but all he needed was oxygen for a few hours after birth and he would have lived. He died. She didn't risk it with her fifth child, who had the same disorder, was born in a hospital, and lived. Such a simple thing to save a life!

2. A stranger, years ago when I was single, childless, and lived in an apartment complex. I heard a man running through the hallway screaming for help. I went. They had no phone so the husband made a quick call to 9-1-1 then came over. His wife was in the process of giving birth and the baby was crowning. She'd been at the hospital but had complete back labor and the monitor wasn't catching it so they sent her home. (second kid, they really should listen to moms more, we know!) That baby lucked out because I loved reading as a kid and recalled reading about this topic, so I knew to have her stop pushing and was able to slip the cord, deliver, and get the child breathing, which he hadn't started doing at birth. Paramedics arrived about 60 seconds after I handed off the baby to mom. The husband had been in panic mode and was clueless. Nobody else would open their doors to help.

3. Myself. I had a professional coach and a mid-wife who worked with a doctor. I labored at home with the coach and we went to the hospital and met the midwife when it seemed right. After the drama of a totally unexpected emergency c-section, I was very grateful that I'd listened to advice and not done a home-birth, although despite the previous two experiences, I wanted to do so, but with EMT's on standby as we lived close to a hospital. And it was ME, so I figured nothing would go wrong because emergencies are supposed to be the exception, right?


Sure, that's only three situations out of countless, but when you witness those situations, you gain a deeper appreciation for life and how fragile it can be, how quickly things could go wrong, how sad it is to lose a child for lack of a very simple, very available machine.

It should always be a parent's choice to birth at home, but it should never be a professional's recommendation unless it contains some very strong precautions, suggestions and warnings so people are aware of how to make the birth safe and how to prepare for emergencies. All parents should be aware that if something goes wrong and they are not within very close range of medical equipment, the baby and mother may die or go through extra problems that can have results ranging from mild to severe and may have long-term impacts on the health of both parties.

 

Those headline-grabbing horror stories ("Surgeons Leave Swab in Patient After Operation" - you know the sort of thing I mean, I'm sure) might seem to add credence to your suggestion that Great Britain's healthcare system is in a mess, but is it?

I have experienced first-hand the NHS (National Health Service) since my birth in 1949, less than a year after it was brought in on 5th July 1948. I am assuming that you have at least some experience of our health care system that enables you to make such a perjorative statement.

I have no experience of the American system, but I could say similar things about it, if I was relying on second-hand information, like this site which says:

An average of 195,000 people in the USA died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, according to a new study of 37 million patient records that was released today by HealthGrades, the healthcare quality company.
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Or this one:

Sorrel King's 18-month-old daughter Josie was recovering from second degree burns at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore when a communication breakdown caused a deadly misstep.

As King watched, a nurse gave Josie a methadone injection despite verbal orders to the contrary, assuring King that the order had been changed.

Josie, who was about to be released from the hospital, went into cardiac arrest.

"I took one look at her ran into the hallway and screamed for help," King said.

Josie died two days later.

Hospital errors, like the one that led to Josie's death, are common. As many as one-third of hospital visits leads to hospital-related injuries, according to a report published today in Health Affairs.
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To me, it seems that whatever system is in place, there will be errors, some with tragic consequences.

 

With my children, I always felt like it was better to be at a hospital so if anything went wrong there would be immediate help. Thank God my children were all born safe and healthy.

I also think doctors are waaaaay more knowledgable about medicine than a midwife, but that's just my opinion.

 

Good call, David!:thumbsup:

The real elephant in the drawing room here is the shortage of midwives, because their pay and other conditions have worsened recently, in part because of government measures to cut our deficit here.