Highland GP Lisa Bell says her home birth was ‘the most magical and empowering moment of my life’

Highland GP Lisa Bell believes delivering her son into her own hands through a home birth was “the most magical and empowering moment of my life” and more women should consider it.

Dr Bell was speaking after NHS Highland confirmed that with a midwife vacancy rate well above 50 per cent the Inverness service would have to be suspended in some cases – leaving many expectant in anguish about their options.

The popularity of home birthing has sparked not inconsiderable debate in recent years and it is a practice that is more often misunderstood and condemned but evidence is mounting that for many mothers it works.

• NHS staff crisis sees Inverness home-birthing service suspended

Dr Bell said that before giving birth she did a lot of research and had to “de-medicalise” her perspective – meaning more that she had to consider options beyond hospital rather than to outright discard medical opinion.

The proponents of home birthing who The Courier spoke to readily acknowledge that anyone expecting a complex birth should not consider home birthing and that a hospital is the best option in those cases.

But for others, where no complications are expected, Dr Bell said that home birth could work for them and that going by her own experiences it was something that she could recommend.

“Birthing our baby boy independently into my own hands at home was truly the most magical and empowering moment of my life,” she said. “I look back on my birth and it fills me with so much joy. Birth really can be beautiful and calm. I wish that more women could experience a peaceful birth.

“My decision to home birth was an evidence based one; I haven’t studied harder for anything in my life. I had to de-medicalise my views on birth and expose myself to lots of positive birth stories; hypnobirthing really helped.”

Hypnobirthing is when women in labour use practised methods that include using deep breathing, relaxation, visualisation, and affirmation or hypnosis scripts in a bid to replace a negative, painful labour and delivery with a positive and confident one.

Dr Bell continues: “Rachel Reed’s Reclaiming Birth is the best book I have ever read in my life. As pregnant people, we tend to spend hours deliberating over baby names and prams. Spending time considering birth preferences is so important. How our babies enter the world really matters and so do mothers' birth experiences.

“After lots of research, I knew I wanted an undisturbed birth as much as possible and that I would feel most relaxed at home. Hypnobirthing allowed me to enter my labour with confidence in what was happening to me and my baby, and how to cope.

“I declined vaginal examinations as I knew my labour was progressing. I used meditation, breath work, a birthing pool and a comb for acupressure to manage my surges.

“I felt completely in control, relaxed and fully supported by the amazing midwives in attendance. I had six hours of surges and I really think being calm and at home helped my labour progress well.”

Dr Bell believes that having a good birth experience is possible through home birth but too many myths cloak the reality of what can be achieved when delivering a baby at home is an option.

“The negative attitudes towards home birth I encountered during pregnancy were shocking”, she said. “The media and television continue to depict childbirth as a terrible thing to be feared or laughed at. Homebirth is a proven safe option for low risk pregnant people and it needs to be better promoted.

“Our NHS runs on the goodwill of its staff and it is deeply saddening to see obstetric services so understaffed. I would dread getting phone calls telling me there was no on-call cover for my planned homebirth. It made me anxious and fear that I would end up in hospital with a cascade of interventions. At the same time you feel terrible for the midwife team who are clearly over-worked and trying their very best.

“It is estimated that one in three women suffer from birth trauma. This is absolutely devastating. With the majority of births occurring in hospitals this should raise a lot of questions – why are these women being significantly harmed and what can be done better to prevent that? A healthy baby is not the only birth outcome that should matter. Women matter and so do their birth experiences and fourth trimester.

“I think the most important thing in homebirth is that women feel fully informed about it as an option and completely supported if it’s their birth preference. Our antenatal care system must change to facilitate this.”

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