Home Births

Alternative arrangements

If you find difficulty arranging a home birth through your doctor, you can contact the Director of Midwifery Services at your local hospital and arrange it yourself, or contact the Association for Improvements in Maternity Services (AIMS) and ask for their help and advice.

Their website provides template letters that you can use to book your home delivery, and also one to send to the Chief Executive of the Maternity Unit if you are told in later pregnancy, as often happens, that a home birth is no longer possible due to a lack of staff or excessive demand on their services.

According to AIMS, the chance of successfully getting a midwife to attend you at a home birth depends on your determination to make a fuss about it. You can, of course, pay privately for maternity care and a home birth if you prefer, but expect this to set you back several thousand pounds.

Another popular scheme is the DOMINO (domiciliary, in and out) in which the midwife comes to you when labour starts and then goes to hospital with you to deliver your baby. You can then go home again, assuming all is well with you and the baby, within a few hours of birth.

The government has also pledged that a woman will have the same 'known and trusted' midwife to care for her throughout her pregnancy, or another known member of her team if she is unavailable. This promise does not extend to the time of delivery, however, although this is obviously the ideal.

Women who experience the one-to-one approach to pregnancy and labour appreciate the continuity of care and are more positive and confident about giving birth. They tend to have a shorter stay in hospital, and are more likely to succeed in breastfeeding than those receiving traditional care. Unfortunately, the shortage of midwives makes this ideal increasingly difficult to achieve.

Stay flexible

It is important to remain flexible in your wishes. Different women have different needs during pregnancy and childbirth, and it is not always possible to tell what these will be in advance. Even the best laid plans may have to be abandoned if you are faced with particular circumstances or complications at the time of delivery. An estimated 15 per cent of home births end with the mother or baby needing a transfer to hospital, and this figure doubles for first-time mothers.

If you have your heart set on a natural home delivery, then need a forceps delivery or Caesarean, it is easy to feel you have somehow failed, because you have lost control, or that your birth experience was not as fulfilling as you would have wished.

By all means make plans and fight for your choices and rights if they are really important to you, but try to remain flexible and philosophical, too, if reality gets in the way.

Useful sites:

• National Childbirth Trust
• Association for Improvements in Maternity Services
• Royal College of Midwives