Why would someone risk their own experience for a water birth =
or
even a unassisted home birth with a known breech presentation?  For
the=20=

babies experience, or for the family's.  The safety of the baby and
mommy=

would far outweigh my own desire for the sake of "experience".

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i don't think women who do this are just doing it for the
"experience".  i just had a home breech birth last october. the baby
had been flipping most of the 3rd trimester as he was very small and
the mw and i b/l'ed he was head down when i went into labor so i
wouldn't call it a 'known breech' planned homebirth, but i knew it was
possible this one could be breech. most good mw's are very experienced
w/ breech deliveries - mine has delivered dozens.

the risks of a home breech birth compared to an automatic c section in
a hospital obviously have to be weighed by every family, but i would
personally prefer the homebirth still every time even if i had gone
into labor knowing. when a mw knows the baby is breech, she goes over
the risks and protocol for such a labor and delivery exhaustively w/
the parents. if she doesn't think the mom can handle her directions
for changing positions, pushing or not pushing on command, having the
baby manipulated or 'somersaulted' if necessary, a mw worth her salt
will not do the birth. luckily for me this baby was my 5th and the one
before him was a path-paving 9 lber and i have very fast labors so
even tho we were surprised to find him breech at 7 cm, i knew my body
could birth him safely.



i didn't do any of my homebirths 'for the experience'. i did them b/c
of the risks i and my 1st two babies were exposed to during our
hospital births. all the unnecessary interventions. sharing a room in
a  crowded hospital with another brand new mom who had her entire
entourage of family, friends and coworkers parading in to hold her 1
day old baby in january in michigan w/ runny noses and coughs and who
was so angry when the baby was kept longer with a fever. because of
going to use the shared bathroom with this same mother and wondering
whose blood that was on the toilet, hers or mine ? or someone else's?
maybe one of the dozens of strangers parading in and out of our shared
space ?



there was very very little about a hospital birth that felt safe to
me. every intervention brought a complication requiring a new and
further intervention. i can't imagine dealing with all the risks and
recovery that go along with a c section just because a dr. is afraid
of being sued and won't let my body do its job on its own. and add on
top of that the indignities and harm to bonding and breastfeeding i
would have to endure ... to any thinking mother i know who has
homebirthed, it's not about the 'experience', it's about keeping our
new babies safe from being chewed up in a system that doesn't allow
for individual considerations or situations.



i could fill an entire digest myself listing all the oversights,
mistakes and near -misses that i caught during my 1st 2 prenatal (like
how about the time the ob assistant mixed up my urine w/ another mom's
left in the same bathroom  and i was told we'd have to go to the hosp
for possible induction at 31 wks b/c of the large amt of protein in
'my' urine) and birth (like how about the brand new girl who got to
rupture my membranes and had to jab 3 or 4 times and when my 2nd son
was born he had 3 bleeding holes right in his soft spot) but suffice
it to say i never had anything like that to worry about with a mw and
homebirth. she never called my husband by the wrong name multiple
times when she saw us for her hurried 5 minute exams. oh wait, that
was the ob! b/c my mw saw us for an hour minimum, every time and
really got to know us and our abilities and limitations as well as our
medical and birth histories in depth.



i'm not trying to go on a diatribe for all natural birth for every
mother, every time. i definitely don't think hb is for everyone. i
actually see myself as standing w/ a foot in each world. i see an ob
until halfway through every pgc. i get ultrasounds to make sure
everything looks normal and healthy  before fully committing to a
homebirth. i take my babies to the ped w/in hours of birth b/c our 1st
hb had (mild) birth defects and we want to be absolutely sure
everything is fine.  if there were a serious complication that could
put a life at risk, i would not hesitate to have a hospital birth
again. (i don't consider normal frank breech to be life threatening
and neither does my mw). but just from the viewpoint of a mother who's
done both, i had more harm and risk and adverse circumstances happen
to me and my babies in the hospital than i ever did at home. i just
couldn't let this go w/out saying unequivocally that as a woman who
knew she might and then did actually have a breech hb that i did it b/
c it was far FAR safer and less risky than what would have happened to
me in a hospital ! i would and do bridle at anyone suggesting it was
'for the experience' when i'm really protecting my baby and keeping us
safe. it reminds me of people who say past a certain age the mother is
just breastfeeding 'for herself'. talk to one mother nursing a 3 or 4
year old and you're going to hear pretty quickly that she is informed,
educated and incredibly intuitive about what is best for her child.
it's such an disservice to birthing women in general to assume they'd
take unnecessary risks to their precious babies for bragging rights
about a cool experience, i just had to offer some firsthand insight.



i'm not sure why the post i am responding to was changed to say
'breech babies and breastfeeding' when it never went on to join the
two subjects tho the implication was that we should ...so i will
dutifully oblige by reporting that breech babies seem to breastfeed
just as beautifully as head down babies !  :-)



~ jacqui gruttadauria,

feeling feisty near detroit, mi today !

www.myspace.com/mummaTOwldthings
























































On Apr 21, 2008, at 7:27 AM, LACTNET automatic digest system wrote:

> Why would someone risk their own experience for a water birth =
> or=20
> even a unassisted home birth with a known breech presentation?  For
> the=20=
>
> babies experience, or for the family's.  The safety of the baby and
> mommy=
> =20
> would far outweigh my own desire for the sake of "experience".


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