Homebirthers: How far from hospital are you?

[Mervs Mum]

No they ring 999. I'm from a family of paramedics and dispatchers and my dad retired a director and no they don't have enough vehicles to have one on standby per homebirth. It would be a huge waste of resources as they're mostly not needed.

 

[Ju_bubbs]

So are they meant to send 2 midwives to home births then?

 

[ttclou25]

No they ring 999. I'm from a family of paramedics and dispatchers and my dad retired a director and no they don't have enough vehicles to have one on standby per homebirth. It would be a huge waste of resources as they're mostly not needed.

I thought the same that it would be a waste of resrouces - i wonder why she said it, seeing her on tuesday maybe i understood her wrong. Ill ask her again.

 

[Mervs Mum]

So are they meant to send 2 midwives to home births then?

Yes. One for you and one for the baby. The second often gets called by the first when you're in established labour

 

[Ju_bubbs]

So are they meant to send 2 midwives to home births then?

Yes. One for you and one for the baby. The second often gets called by the first when you're in established labour

Ahh thanks, that will explain why I only had one then.. since she didn't arrive til after birth! lol

 

[NuKe]

10 mins max!

 

[Mervs Mum]

I was at a birth where it went off really fast and the second Mw came first as she lived closer! The baby beat the pair of them!

 

[Ju_bubbs]

I'm kinda very quietly hoping that this baby beats them too.. I'm sure I'd have been a lot less relaxed and calm had there been midwives there fussing around!

 

[kate79]

I was thinking of having baby at v nice birthing centre near Canary Wharf area. Lovely huge rooms with double bed for you and your partner, sofa, tv, stereo, en-suite, birthing pool, balcony, dedicated mw just for you, massage, tens machine, gas and air and all free on the NHS. the thing that put me off was the transfer time to hospital if they needed to do anything (they have no doctors - completely mw led) which was 45mins. i thought that was alot and have decided to go with a home birth. the thing is, THEY didnt think that 45mins, in an ambulance no less, was that long at all, they seemed to think it was quite a short transfer time, nothing to worry about. i think if your mw is happy then its maybe its ok. having said that i have chosen the homebirth with the ten mins transfer over the v nice bc with 45mins transfer for that very reason

 

[Mervs Mum]

I think the thing to remember is that what ever the transfer time is they have already factored that in. If anything mws at home or in a standalone birth centre are anticipating things earlier than in hospital. So if you have a situation arise at home where they're thinking it might be something to transfer in for, they will make the move quicker to factor travel in. If you were in hospital and the same scenario happened they would probably let things go on for longer as they're is no extra time to factor in. Most transfers are not true emergencies but for more pain relief, tired mums or just to follow protocols rather than life of death situations. In a true emergency where there's a possibility that theatre would be needed you can't just get in there in 5 mins. From decision to go to theatre to incision is often 45 mins or so anyway. your mws will factor transfer in if it's 10 mins or 1 hour

 

[moomin_troll]

I was about 10 mins away, although it took the mw over an hour ti get to me when she was 5 mins up the road and the second mw didnt turn up for an hour after corey was born then when I needed to go in after for stitches it took the ambulance an hour to get to me and then took them 20 mins to drive me to hospital....they even admitted they were wasting time as they could go home after dropping me off.