Gonneke, Heleen, Marianne - Please tell us that the young man in the
checkered shirt was not a typical component at a home birth!  Was he a
participant on the Try Before You Die show, with baby-catching as the thing
to try?  

I enjoyed watching the video on YouTube but it made me curious about how
typical it is for a woman to be lying so flat on her back, and how typical
for the attendants to be bossing her around the way it looked like they were
doing?  It reminded me more of a typical hospital birth here.  The women in
Norway who want to have their babies at home are out of the ordinary and
they mostly have very specific wishes for a quiet atmosphere, maybe with
music and low lights, and undisturbed time with the baby afterwards.

One of my big objections to the way our maternity services are organized is
that for a woman to have a known midwife in attendance, she either has to
live in one of a dozen small geographic areas around the country where there
is continuity of carer built into the service, or she has to have her baby
at home.  For more than ninety-nine percent of women, births are attended by
whoever is on duty at the time in the ward serving their residential area,
and except in Oslo, that means a choice field of exactly one hospital.  I
think it is inhumane to force such a choice on a pregnant woman.  In my
perfect world, the birth attendant and the venue for the birth could be
chosen separately, using different criteria.  Anyone qualified to practice
as a midwife here would be able to catch your baby wherever you happened to
be, whether it was in your own birthing pool at home or in the national
referral hospital if your pregnancy mandated such care.  Once you'd made
your choice about attendant, based on someone whose chemistry jibes with
your own, the venue should be chosen on the basis of suitability.  Giving
birth with a virtual stranger is a huge challenge for the mother and for the
stranger assisting her.  It's surprising how often it goes well, and that
speaks volumes about the adaptability of women and possibly says something
about my midwife colleagues.

This is way off topic, except that oxytocin is involved in both processes,
and whatever promotes good oxytocin release will promote birthing and
breastfeeding alike.

Rachel Myr
Wishing there were more home births to attend in Kristiansand, Norway

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