Supporting and Sharing—Home Birth

Abstract

The planned home birth has provoked discussion around the world. Home birth has been described as a positive experience, but results regarding the safety of home birth are controversial. To date, the phenomenon has mainly been examined from the mother's point of view, and there is only one previous study reporting fathers' perspective. The purpose of the present phenomenological qualitative interview study was to investigate fathers' experiences of planned home birth. Eleven fathers were interviewed, and the data were analyzed using Colaizzi's phenomenological method. The fathers followed the woman's wish in choosing the birthplace and set aside their own views. Furthermore, hospital birth was not an option for the fathers due to their own prior negative experiences of hospital births such as disturbing the natural progress of birth. The fathers' experience of home birth included sharing the responsibility, supporting the woman, and participating in the home birth process. The experience was challenging; fathers had to take the role of a midwife, and no support or information on organizing home birth was offered by public health services. The fathers felt that the home birth connected them as family, and the experience was empowering. Our study results suggest that the health care professionals need more education and information on home birth and that the families (including fathers) interested in home birth need greater support from health care professionals. There is a need for proper national home birth guidelines, while family-and client-centered care has to be improved in birthing hospitals.

‘She convinced me’- partner involvement in choosing a high risk birth setting against medical advice in the Netherlands: A qualitative analysis

“…In fact, most of them initially had no firm views about the impending birth and would not have raised the idea of going outside conventional care themselves. This is in line with other studies [18][19][20]22,33], where the pregnant woman initiated conversations about birth options that were against convention or medical recommendation. Often these plans originated in a previous traumatic experience in maternity care, where the women experienced a cascade of interventions and lack of shared decision making [18,20,24,28].…”

“…This is in line with other studies [18][19][20]22,33], where the pregnant woman initiated conversations about birth options that were against convention or medical recommendation. Often these plans originated in a previous traumatic experience in maternity care, where the women experienced a cascade of interventions and lack of shared decision making [18,20,24,28]. The overarching theme of 'fear' (of unnecessary intervention, loss of autonomy, provider's fear of bad outcome and legal ramifications) from our previous study on women's motivations [24] was not found to be an important factor in this current study.…”

“…Once they were convinced by their wife/girlfriend of the intended plan for the birth, they defended these views to their social circle. In accordance with the findings of Fenwick [3], Sweeney [18], Jouhki [20] and Lindgren [21], they encountered mostly negative reactions from friends and family.…”

“…Several studies have been done in countries where all home births are against medical advice. Three Scandinavian studies [19][20][21] and a Spanish study [22] have similar findings as the studies quoted above: the idea for a home birth came from the women. The men had doubts at first, but were eventually in agreement with the women.…”

“…The partners in the current study had a high level of engagement with the process of pregnancy and childbirth. Similar to studies by Jouhki et al [20] and Viissainen [28], partners took on an active role participating in preparing for the birth, writing a birth plan, and discussing possible scenarios for which solutions were agreed on, making the men in this study appear to be very much engaged in the birth of their child.…”