I have been a lurker on this board for a while, mainly participating on topics involving low carbing during pregnancy and TTC topics. Well as it turns out I've just found out I'm pregnant and I'm trying to do as much research as possible because this is my first.

For all your mom's out there do you have a preference on labor and delivery methods? Like, water birth, midwifery, epidurals etc?

I'm not quite sure where to start but would like to get some input if possible.

Thanks!

Everybody is different. I had two home waterbirths and planned a homebirth with my first but agreed to transfer pre-labor due to low fluids. I went from my house to the hospital when I got to 8 cms - I had been laboring in the birth pool. My doctor was non-interventionist and was actually sort of apprenticing with my lay midwives, so I feel like I had a homebirth at the hospital. For that, I had big babies, no tears, not bruising or trauma with my waterbirths despite a 9 and a half pound baby and a 10lb10oz baby the third time. It worked really well for me, but you have to be very comfortable with being at home. It was much easier not having to go to the hospital the last two time. I went out with my husband and the baby the day after the birth to a cafe in the neighborhood and just felt great.

Janine

I had a home waterbirth and I am planning the same for this one. I cannot recommend homebirth enough. It is a safe, healthy and empowering option as long as you are low-risk. And statistically (from what I have gathered) a midwife attended birth is safer for a low-risk woman than going to the hospital. (You avoid all those interventions, infections floating around hospitals ect).

Great question, Jacki...and great feedback, Janine and Jen. I've really been thinking about a water birth forever...more likely in the hospital, but still...water needs to be involved for me. Glad to hear such glowing reviews about it!

i had my son at a birthing center with attending midwives. it was great and i wouldn't do it any other way! it's a good compromise between hospital and home birth.

Thanks Ladies, I know i'm not very far along but that is the way I am leaning towards. I'd really like my MIL, Mom, DH and Aunt to be there atleast and I know at hospitals that is "too many" people. Which is stupid in my opinion....

Also it's much more peaceful and if anything goes wrong i'm always just a mile from the hospital....

get and read the book Immaculate Deception. It talks about all the issues with the various pain meds used during labor.

I had both of my children with a midwife practice at a large academic medical center. I have some health issues that rule out home birth or even a birthing center, but most of my friends go that route. If you want a natural birth, go that route. If you want to do everything humanly possible to avoid c-section (and I think that's the best idea), go the natural birth route.

Even though I was with a practice that encouraged natural birth, that encouraged mothers to consider not having pain medication, I still had an epidural with both of my children. For the first, I will say that it ultimately saved my delivery. I think without it I would have had the c-section. It is very difficult in the hospital setting to go through completely naturally. People can gently say "we can make you more comfortable"...

In the end, I don't think the epidural does much harm to the baby. But the real issue at stake is the critical bonding/breastfeeding time following birth. How does the epidural impact that? It can elevate the mother's body temperature, this is a fairly common reaction to it. However, when the mother's temperature is elevated, the medical staff assume infection first, whisk the baby off to the NICU, start a course of anti-biotics and separate mother and baby. There goes the critical bonding time, there goes the instinctive breastfeeding window. You can never get those things back, and now your baby is being pumped full of meds that aren't really good for them because they kill off good bacteria.

Read Immaculate deception. That scenario didn't happen to me. I think if I have another I'm going to hire a birth doula and try to actually do it naturally.

Yet another home birther.

Actually, it's quite funny, because before I got pregnant I always assumed I'd want the most high-tech birth possible. In fact, the nearer to "Beam it out, Scotty," the better. Once I got pregnant and started reading, I did a complete 180 and went for the home birth.

With a family history of long first labours, and a local hospital that is very quick to section older mothers, I reckoned the safest place for me was home. In the end, my labour actually lasted three and a half hours, which I'm convinced is due to being in my own enviroment, and being able to labour the way that suited me: dancing to loud rock music.

I found that as long as I could keep my hips moving, I could handle the contractions. In fact, I know it sounds odd, but I really enjoyed the whole labour an birth bit, and if I didn't have to do nine months of pregnancy first, I'd give birth at least once a week.

I can't resist telling you about my second birth, at home. I had a 1.5 hour nap at 10 centimeters, hung out with no pushing contractions for that long, woke up and had the baby. That would have been a section at the hospital.

Janine

Wow, I am amazed at all the other homebirthers here! Usually I feel like an outsider or freak when this topic comes up at my other haunts (online and otherwise). I had my daughter at home last December.
I cannot say enough about the water tub. I went ahead and bought "La Bassine" - I LOVED the inflatable sides and rested my head back and slept between contractions for a good part of the labor. It was just the right size too - I was about 245 (boo) at delivery time and I'm tall. I have to say water did NOT take the pain away, but while I was in the tub I could handle it because I didn't have to do anything (like sit, stand, balance, etc.) except go through each contraction. I also highly recommend picking up the book "Birthing From Within." Her attitude toward birth really resonated with me and helped a lot and one technique in particular (non-focused awareness) was what I used the most.
I've been labor support for friends at hospital births and for a lot of reasons it is really hard to go natural in that setting. (The last one I witnessed in particular sealed my decision to go with a home birth for myself. Typical horror story you hear about a jerk doc riding roughshod over her wishes.) That said, women do pull it off. Personally, I can't imagine going through labor without the water! Like someone else said, there is a good place for epidurals (and other interventions) but not when you are just being treated to conform to the standard practice. If we had needed it I would have been at the hospital and glad for it. But I am so, so grateful for the way it went.
Finding a midwife you click with and whom you can trust is crucial. I had full faith in my "people" to know if I had needed more help so I could just relax and ride out the storm, so to speak.
Congratulations on your pregnancy! This is such an exciting (and tough!) time.

I have had several friends do the home birth thing. I totally understand the inclination of wanting to do it at home on their own terms with the help knowlegable practioner.
After having my son, I thought I sooooo could have done that better at home!!! I had a horrible experience at a hospital with a mean nurse and a jacka** of a doc.

This time I have a new doctor and hospital. She is just a couple years older than me, and I totally click with her. She is a famliy practice doctor, so she takes care of everyone from the cradle to the grave. I wanted family practice because I did not like the OBGYN approach of micromanaging everything. She says she has a more low-intervention approach to childbirth. If I want drugs/whatever then they are availiable.

Another thing is that she does not do c-sections. She will do anything possible to avoid that rout. I am a rather large framed induvidual so I am not worried about that anyways.

This time, if my water does not break in the same second as my first contration (like the first time), I will wait a bit before going in. It sucks wandering the hall in an ugly gown with your backside hanging out......

I always thought that a good rule was "If you can walk, don't walk into hospital". As long as you can handle labour at home, stay there.

Oh, something very interesting I heard: It seems that humans, like cats, can briefly reverse labour if necessary. If you disturb a labouring cat, she can halt labour until she gets to a new place of safety. And it seems that women can do it too.

This is why you'll get a woman who's been labouring at home for hours, but feels it's starting to get too much for her, so she goes into hospital and is told she's only at 2cm. "Sod this, if all this effort only got me to 2cm, I want an epidural," she says, without realising that she had been at 7cm before the move to hospital. Half an hour of privacy and she'd be back to 7cm without any intervention.

actually, all mammals can stop labor. If you happened upon a doe in labor, she would leap up, run away and not resume contractions until she felt sure you were nowhere nearby.

And I can personally testify to the fact that worry stops labor. I was totally in labor when I got to the hospital with my first: water leaking, contractions 5 minutes apart and painful...but after waiting 45 minutes in the emergency room lobby for them to get a wheelchair down to bring me up to L&D, it stopped totally, and took every darn intervention in the book to get it back! And if you go to the hospital and your waters have ruptured at all, you're not going home. Thank God I had a midwife who wasn't going to send me for the C-section if it wasn't absolutely necessary. Most places won't let you go more than 24 hours after your waters rupture before doing a c-section, mine let me go 53.5, which was long enough to deliver normally.

I had both my babies at the hospital with an epidural. I also researched home births, but it made my husband uncomfortable, so we went with a hospital birth. Looking back, it was a great decision for me. I had a very long first labor and a relatively quick 2nd, both went very quickly after the epidural, which allows you to relax and often speeds up the process. I was also well rested, thanks to the lovely epidural, and able to bond and breast feed with my babies immediately after their births. I would recommend the epidural but not the other drugs they offer during labor, I was given a narcotic before the epidural with my first and it was entirely pointless- made me loopy, nauseous and didn't relieve the contractions at all! I also liked the fact that there was no clean up involved for me, being at my own house would have stressed me out!

With my first pregnancy, I wanted a home birth, but since that wasn't an option with my first, I settled on a nearby midwife facility. I spent all my energy learning about midwife births, totally ignoring any c-section information because "it wouldn't happen to ME". I was going to go TOTALLY natural, no drugs.

After 2.5 days of labor, I was relieved when my midwives decided it was time to transport me across the street to the hospital for a c-section.

My point? Research ALL options, be ready for anything, and have a contingency plan if your first choice doesn't work out. Remember, the ultimate goal is a healthy mom and babe.

Good luck to you!