There are two ways you can look at this subject … failure or success. There are two ways you can deal with this if it happens to you … like a failure or with success.
Transferring from a home birth is never anticipated or else people won’t plan home births. Transferring from a home birth to hospital occurs when it is deemed necessary for the wellbeing of the mother and child or if the woman is too tired to continue at home.
There are some countries where there is an ease when transferring to hospital from a home birth because both are considered normal and natural places to give birth. And the poltical/legal/care system is set up to make the transition as comfortable as possible.
In other countries, transferring from a home birth to hospital is very challenging for the family, the care provider who attended the home birth and hospital providers. These are the realities faced when this occurs.
For any family, the choice of a home birth is a very emotional decision. For many families giving birth at home means being surrounded by what is familiar and doing things the way you want. That alone does not guarantee that you will stay at home and not transfer to hospital.
You can greatly increase the probability of staying at home to give birth when you learn birth and coaching skills during pregnancy. Childbirth is a very physical process. A very large object has to come out of a container. When we prepare our body for birth we do so intentionally to make that process easier and safer for both our self and our baby.
Part of preparing for our birthing body is also learning the birth and coaching skills that help us work with our baby’s efforts to be born on the ‘Big Day’. When we couple preparing our pregnant body for birth and use the skills to work with the process then we are more likely to self reduce some of the common reasons women transfer from home births to hospital.
If we have to transfer for very serious medical reasons and are glad we live in countries where modern medicine exists then the skills come with us to be used. We don’t have to skip a beat. We’re still going to breathe. Our body will be in some place even if we need medical assessments, monitoring and procedures.
When we transfer from home to hospital, we can still use these birth and coaching skills. Obstetricians, midwives and staff absolutely love to see women coping with labour and fathers really helping. All birth professionals want families to have a very positive birth experience even if they don’t support your choice to have a home birth.
You might be glad or angry that you’ve had to transfer from a planned home birth to hospital. By using your birth skills you get to impress in your memory what you have done for yourself in what has become your hospital birth. What do you think you’ll remember? Being passive to the experience or doing something for your self?
Transferring to hospital from a home birth might be a disappointment or a relief. When you have your birth skills you realize that where or with whom you birth is much less important than the working with your baby’s efforts to be born. You’re actually lucky. Instead of transferring from home to hospital you could be living during an earthquake, flood, tsunami, famine or war like millions of women.
So get on with the glorious experience of giving birth no matter what. Use your skills and you’ll always feel empowered.