Transfer to hospital can be a big worry to women who are thinking about staying home to birth their baby. In a recently published report they looked very carefully at the main reason for transfer in Sweden. They chose this country because women are not supported by the government to birth at home so they felt that the issues wouldn’t be related to policy and procedure. Between 6-12% of women get transferred to the hospital

The most common reason to transfer was failure to progress. That’s a long labour with no sign of baby arriving. They didn’t really qualify what that would mean. My perspective on a long labour may be very different to yours. (there is nothing like a good walk for a long labour)

The other big reason for transfer was lack of continuity of care by the provider. With an Independent midwife this is rare. You contract a midwife and unless something out of that midwife’s control happens she will make it to your birth. Homebirthing within the system means that the midwives have limits to the hours they can work. in SA it’s 12 hours. Although you meet a back up midwife as well, they may have another client or worked their hours, have a day off or holiday too.

There are lots of variables that need to fall into place to have the optimum chance of being at home and staying there. Reasons sited like post maturity, prolonged rupture of membranes and meconium are also open to interpretation and should be thoroughly looked into before considering them.

All in all the incredible disasters anticipated don’t really seem to be big issues when considering your birth choices. With so many reasons to get a ceasarian at the hospital and so few reasons to transfer to the hospital it makes you wonder why there is such a fuss over perceived risks. Also makes you think carefully about the type of Care provider that you really want to provide you with continuity of care.

The decision to incision time as shown by this piece of research wasn’t less than 30 mins even in the most critical of situations. Knowing that at the private hospitals in this state there is no doctor available on the premise overnight to treat Obstetric problems. I really struggle to see how the crappy lack of continuity and dire decision making can be justified by saying well at least the doctor is available. On yes, tucked up in bed at 3am.

Who wouldn’t want the chance to do this at home with an attendant that they know and love?

This article came to my attention at a great moment. Tomorrow evening (11th April) the Birth Matters group are running a homebirth information evening. I will be there and guess what my topic is? The evening starts at 7.30pm and is at Eastwood community centre on Glen Osmond Road.

Related posts:

1. Naomi, Transfer To Hospital Abruption
2. Why Homebirth
3. Guide Of SA Hospital Stats, What’s Available Anyway
4. Homebirth vs Hospital: Statistics To Die For
5. Private midwife, hospital birth