Clare's Home Birth After Caesarian

 I read an interesting article in Midwifery Matters magazine by Clare Caro who jumped through all the hoops put in her way to have a home birth after a previous caesarian section (CS). She was traumatised by her first birth where she says she was in labour for 3 days which ended in an emergency CS.

Women who are in labour for such a long time have mainly adrenalin to blame. As soon as women start to have contractions they become afraid and anxious. This is because society has taught them that labour WILL be painful and pain is to be feared, hence the fear. Watching One Born Every Minute should be banned for all women as it plants the seeds of fear that sprout and grow as labour approaches. Adrenalin, the natural result of anxiety, 'sticks' to the human cervix and makes it harder to open so labour goes on and on and on.

Just like me with my second, Clare lied about her due date from her last menstrual period so that she would have extra time to go into labour before the INDUCTION word would be mentioned. She justifies this by saying “I felt slightly bad for telling a lie, but if women are being told a date that has a 7% chance of being true, then who exactly are the ones being lied to here?”

Clare says that home births are a natural choice when giving birth as you feel safer in a place “free from intruders, dark, warm and quiet. A place that harks back to the cave, where for thousands of years our ancestor's would have found safety from the world outside.” She goes on to explain how as soon as she reached hospital with her first they insisted on performing a vaginal examination (VE) and how this made her feel violated as she was put under pressure to have one. All women who present to a hospital in ? Labour are expected to undergo a VE, if you do not want one then you will not be allowed onto the labour ward. Some birth centers do not perform a regular VE, they use their experience of labour to assess the contractions and watch the woman's body language to decide if someone is in labour or not. A VE is very useful information for midwives and lets us plan your labour. However, if you decline then you should not be punished for it. Also lying down in labour is very uncomfortable and may make the contractions become painful so ask the midwife to be as quick as possible as you need to be upright for a pain free labour.

Clare explains that when you are at home you can relax and feel safe so that your brain can enter a theta frequency which is the deepest level of conciousness that we can experience in a waking state. This is what relaxation techniques taught in this blog and outlined in the books strive to achieve, a level of total relaxation whilst still being awake.

Eating Miso soup in labour was a new one on me. Apparently it contains all the 9 essential amino acids, is high in Vitamin K and minerals. This is the beauty of being at home in labour, you can eat and drink what takes your fancy and move around, adopting different positions to suit your own personal labour.

Clare had her home birth with no problems at all with a midwife she knew and her own doula in attendance. Whilst pushing her baby out in her bathroom after a nice warm bath she states “There was no time for thoughts right now, I was my body not my mind.” This is how women who are totally centered on their labour feel, no one shouting PUSH at them, just going with the flow of a fast moving stream delivering your baby to you.

“hot flannel (on the perineum to help it stretch) and immense contractions, and with just one of those contractions out came a head and body – slipping right into my hands, I placed the baby gently on the towels in front of me. Nick and I got to know our girl, touching her, holding her and holding onto each other. Here she was, at the end of the journey.”

See the post VBAC AT HOME? ( http://painfreelabour.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/vbac-at-home.html ) for why a home birth could be the best way to avoid a second CS. However, an interesting fact that Clare brought up was to do with how hospitals in the USA sew back together a uterine opening, they do it differently to our surgeons in the UK rendering their CS scar weaker and more likely to rupture. Do they do this on purpose so that they can keep on getting more dollars for performing section after section and to hell with what the woman wants? Would not be surprised.