community midwife question... the lanes

[neilly1973]

hi all

I am 21 weeks with my first baby. I am relatively keen on homebirth but my partner is very undecided... in fact, he's anxioius about us having our first baby at home and would rather we were in the birthing centre at kings and if all goes well, have a waterbirth 'next time'..

there is the added complication that as we live in a first floor flat, it may not be possible to have a waterbirth at home (due to weight of the pool)... i then become unsure about homebirth - without a water pool...

I now have a place with the Lanes questions are:

- do they only deliver at home? or if we decide on waterbirth in the birthing centre at Kings, will they still deliver our baby?

- are they good?

any advice/tips very gratefully received...

[nylonmeals]

They are very good but are you registered with them at the moment as you might be too late for this pregnancy?

[180176]

yep, what nylonmeals said - they were really amazing with me, beginning to end, but they are in huge demand and i think you need to be registered v v early to get on their books. good luck with everything tho!

[sillywoman]

Ok; The Lanes aim to have your named midwife, with whom you have developed a relationship, or her 'second', deliver your baby wherever you decide to give birth, BUT . . . if they're short staffed then homebirths take priority. In this situation, you would go into labour, call your Lanes midwife who would then come and asses how far advanced your labour is. If you are in established labour (cervix 4cms dilated or more) then she will ask you how you feel, whether you want to carry on with your labour at home or go to hospital. If you want to go to Kings & they're short staffed, then they will see you safely into the hands of Kings medical professionals - either ambulance technicians if you chose that method of transfer to hospital, or Kings labour ward midwives if you chose to get yourselves to hospital. Then they may leave to attend someone else who is having a homebirth. If you chose to have continue your labour at home then they stay with you.

If they're not short staffed then they stay with you wherever you have your baby.

Also re 'are they good?'. The service they provide is as rare as hens teeth in the UK. Because it's on our doorstep we take it for granted but if you speak to anyone from anywhere else (with a few notable exceptions) they will be astounded at the service that you get the Lanes. I know that Fuschia (on this forum) didn't have a great start with the Lanes, and one or two others have found that the Lanes didn't work well for them, but on the whole 'good' doesn't even touch what they do.

Just a note, it's not a 'birth centre' at Kings (yet - though it's in the pipeline). It's a Consultant led labour unit. There's quite a significant difference.

[BellendenBear]

If you wanted some reassurance about homebirths for you or your partner there are meetings at Kings (every month I think) in the evenings. I think the NCT run them but you don't have to be a member (again, I think). You get to talk about all the practicalities of HB, any fears and concerns and there will be people there who have recently had a HB to share their experience.

[Smiler]

I am registered with the Lanes and am planning a hospital birth and have been told that they will check me out, help decide when to go into Kings and with the transfer, but not stay at the hospital.

[littleEDfamily]

That's interesting, Smiler. I wonder if that has changed recently, as I am sure when I registered with them the plan would have been for them to stay with me in the event of a planned hospital birth. I guess it may be an adjustment to their service based on its popularity, but then again as we were hoping for a homebirth, we may not have properly explored the finer details of how it would work if we planned for hospital.

To answer your 'are they good' question, OP - absolutely, and, as well as my main midwife, I met 5 more of them (including 2 student midwives), and I would have been happy to have any of them deliver me. As it happens, I didn't get my main midwife for the big event, but couldn't have been happier with the back ups.

Am I right in thinking if you plan a homebirth and subsequently need to transfer to hospital for whatever reason, they would then stay on to deliver the baby?

[Belle]

I was with them but due to complications near the end had a hospital birth, but they stayed with me. My named midwife was away and I had two others plus had contact with most of the rest of them in the postnatal period. I think they're all excellent, and I feel very lucky that I had them.

[Monkey]

What sillywoman says.

The Lanes are fab, fab, fab. Would not give birth with anyone else!

[peckhamboy]

We had our first recently with the Lanes, and they have been excellent throughout. We were unusual in that we were planning a hospital birth but ended up having the baby at home...

Anyway, either way the midwives will aim to stay with you from 4cm dilated up to and just past the birth, whether at hospital or home. There are a couple of exceptions though - they work shifts so if you have a long labour you may not finish with the same midwife who started; and home births get priority (they have to have 2 midwives present for a homebirth) so if a number of women go into labour at the same time, your Lanes midwife may have to leave you once you are in the hands of Kings.

Understandably, they are hugely in demand but limit the number of women they take on who are due in any one month, in order to reduce the chances of a clash that they can't cope with. Of course, there will be peaks and troughs though (apparently the recent hot weather brought on a number of labours for example, so there was a bit of a cluster at the time we had ours).

The other thing to bear in mind is that they are pretty flexible so don't feel that you need to make a decision now and can't change it. In fact, I wouldn't get too hung up about the birthing plan at all - I doubt that any birth goes entirely to plan!