Why Would You Not Want the Baby Monitored?

Homebirthing does not mean "no monitoring", it simply means not being hooked up to monitors constantly.

My 4th hospital birth was "unmonitored". My baby's cord was double wrapped and knotted. The intermittent hand-held doppler alerted my mws to the decels. My mw did call to have the OR prepped, but I was able to deliver on my own.

The assumption that not using all available technology means using NO technology is just wrong.

If i ever have another baby i will do it at home with a well recommended midwife. My experience has been that the less medical intervention ive had with both births the better. Midwifes are more than qualified to recognize warning signs and they do have their own equipment. They take their business seriously. They aren't just hippies with forceps. My body when left do things on its own was much more efficient at childbirth than when it wasnt.

But thats just me

Monitors strap you down and force you to labor in positions that are not conducive to pain management or birth. A woman should be able to move around while laboring, and birth in a squat or on hands and knees, it make her much less likely to tear.

I am a midwife. Continuous fetal monitoring does not improve outcomes. That is a proven fact. All it does is increase unneccessary c-sections due to clinical error. For example not being able to pick up the heart rate because the baby moved and the monitor fell off. The baby is perfectly fine but the care providers freak out and do a c-section. It is much better to do intermittent monitoring with a hand held doppler which is what occurs at homebirths. We monitor the baby every 30-60 minutes which is better for the baby and the mother. This also prevents the mother from being tied down to a monitor so she can move which is essential to the success of a natural birth. I have had two wonderful homebirths and have attended 100's of others. Research has also proven that homebirth for a healthy mother is safer for the mother and the baby.

In response to Tracy K: The statement that you made that you would not put your want for a natural birth above your child being healthy is very disrespectful to the women that choose homebirth or natural births. We also do not put our needs before our children. The reason we choose homebirth is because we ARE putting our children first. It is much healthier and safer for the baby to be born at home and without a ton of intervention or medications. Women that choose homebirth are extremely educated about the birth process, what occurs, and also what happens in the hospital setting. And mortality rates are climbing in the hospitals in this country even with all of the equipment available and the "highly trained medical experts."

In response to Denise P who said "When parents deny a child life saving or essential medicine they a re charged with a crime in this country. That's a fine line."
Birth is not a medical event that you need essential medicine for. Birth is a normal and natural part of life. Women that give birth at home are not denying their child essential medicine. As long as they are healthy they are choosing the best place to give birth for the baby. That is a proven fact. And Denise did you know that your "essential medicine" is responsible for 100's of deaths per day because it was used when it was not needed. What should happen in those cases?

Denise- Sorry, you have it all wrong. Back up the stuff you say by facts and maybe you will be taken more seriously.

Denise- Just now saw your message to me. I was gone all afternoon and evening taking care of my own children and my clients. Pamela said it perfectly. Even if I gave you links to look up, you don't care enough to actually research the topic or read anything because you are so hooked on the fact that you think your "beliefs" are correct. But I will throw you a bone. Go to your nearest bookstore or library and pick up these books by Henci Goer; The Thinking Woman's Guide to Better Birth and Obstetric Myths Versus Research Realities. Both books are backed up with a ton of scientific studies and actual numbers. Once you have read these then we can discuss other things you should read if you are interested in going further.

I think there are people out there who have absolutely perfect births where nothing goes wrong. I'm not jealous of it, I'm not angry with them, but I honestly believe that some people think that since there were no issues with their birth then everyone else must either:

A) have a money-hungry doctor and hospital
B) don't know better and just submit to whatever the nurses tell them
C) are too "lazy" and just take an epidural, etc.
(insert eye-rolling and "please, give me a break" here...)
People seem to forget that while yes, a mother's body is typically made for birth, there are many instances where monitoring and interventions are ABSOLUTELY necessary. It isn't a matter of convenience for the mother or the doctor; it is a legitimate health issue for the baby or the mother.

For me - well, I'm on the opposite side of many pregnant women. Being pregnant was like having a medical illness or issue. Getting pregnant was difficult. Carrying the baby was difficult. Delivering the baby was risky and difficult. In my mind I simply cannot imagine any joy associated with being pregnant other than having a child at the end. But, I also recognize that there are many women who LOVE being pregnant, who glow, who almost get a high off of it. Doesn't make them bad or weird, just different and that's okay.

My point? Sometimes it is hard to see and understand the other side if you've not experience the risk or the fear that something might happen to you or your child. And really, for me, those aren't chances I really want to take. My doctor has nearly 30 years of experience as a board-certified, FACOG OB and has delivered 1000s of babies. Me? I've delivered a whopping TWO. Who's the expert and who should I trust? My doctor!

Another thing that scares me about not being monitored in a hospital is post-partum hemorrhaging (sp?). Right after my son came out, I began to bleed ALOT. Very scary situation, but the doctor was able to call for what she needed to get it stopped. I honestly cannot imagine this happening at home or in a birthing center, because the blood loss would be huge by the time I made it to a hospital. My mother also had this happen when my brother was born 30 years ago...they didn't have the same drugs available then to stop the bleeding, so they had to rush her to an emergency hysterectomy. Not sure how common this is, but in my family, it has been common, so I definitely believe in being in a hospital for birth!

I think you may have misunderstood---certified midwives who attend homebirths do check the baby, via a hand-held device that does the same thing that the hospital monitors do (ie, checks babies heartrate). And they have a "back-up doctor" who has hospital privileges so that if needed the baby can be seen and treated (ex, emergency c-section).

The difference is that in the hospital, a) they don't have the staff on hand for the 1-on-1 to do the hand monitoring, so they hook you up to a machine instead, and b) by being attached to a machine, you are basically limited to the bed and immediate area (like 6 feet of the bed) and that limits your ability to move around and change positions to labor in the most efficient position for you. In a homebirth, the midwife is there with you and gives you 1 on 1 the whole time (is monitoring you the whole time and checks on the baby very often with the hand-held device), allowing you to labor more naturally, in terms of both labor position and in terms of your comfort level.)

Statistically, homebirth is a safe choice, when done for a normal (not a high-risk) pregnancy, where the midwife is a trained and certified midwife. Homebirth is still the most common way to deliver in the Netherlands for example, and they are not a 3rd world country.

Well I never wanted a home birth, but NOT because of the monitors, I wanted pain med!
The monitors are not perfect. With my second child they told me my contractions were not strong enough and sent me home. I ended up giving birth on the living room floor surrounded by firefighters and paramedics :(
With my third, again they said my contractions weren't strong enough but I insisted on staying. Sure enough, the baby started coming suddenly with my husband yelling out to the nurses and the nurses scrambling to find a doctor.
I think women opt for home births mostly because STATISTICALLY speaking they are safer for both mothers and babies. Of course complications and even death can occur in a home birth but it is MORE likely to happen in a hospital birth.
But like I said, it wasn't for me, I didn't want to birth at home. I'm glad we all have a choice when it comes to childbirth and I hope it always stays that way :)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100701072730...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20598284

Infant mortality rates have gone down drastically as the medical community has continnued to make life saving advances. Less women and babies are dying during childbirth due to good prenatla care and being born in well equipped hospitals with highly trained medical experts. I would never forgive myself if my need to be all natural and make myself comfortable cost my baby her life.

Having had a home birth, this is my take on it:

From conception to birth, there is no time that is more or less 'safe' for the baby. Babies who birth 'perfectly fine' sometimes die. Babies sometimes make it to the third trimester in the womb and just stop living --who knows why?

For me, I chose to birth at home because I'm a very private person. I like familiarity and had visited with my midwives several times. I'm not a 'run to the doctor' sort of person, and because I am so private, I felt that this more relaxed environment would be more conducive to laboring. (And really, I studied midwifery on my own as a hobby for 10 years or so... long enough to know that being stuck on one's back is pretty unhelpful, to say the least.)

As it was stated earlier, monitoring has its own risk of bacterial infection. Plus, due to that risk, the likelihood of using interventions is increased. I was 'monitored' however, by a midwife who had a doppler device, and was fine. However, it also creates an atmosphere of stress and imminent danger, to me, and having said this, I do wonder if my labor would have completely stalled due to being treated like a medical emergency instead of like a laboring woman.

Nonetheless, my decision wasn't based on "I don't want monitoring", but more that I was feeling confident that home birth was the right choice for us. Plus, I do live one block away from the hospital and chose a midwifery team which was well-connected with several hospitals in the area. Just as in any other aspect of life or parenting I tried to make a balanced choice based not on fear but information. Our experience was a good one.

Momof3girls has it EXACTLY right. If you are pregnant you owe it to the health of your baby to fully understand what interventions like monitors really result in a lotof the time. It's just a few hours of research before you learn that the medical industry has to be concerned about liability over all else. If your hooked up to a monitor the hospital staff will respond to whatever that monitor does, they have to, to protect themselves from lawsuits. By doing this they intervene in many labors that would otherwise progress fine and result in a healthy birth. Those interventions result in more negative outcomes than if they just let the Mother labor and deliver at her own pace without medical intervention. The numbers are there and they are pretty convincing. Of course medical intervention is necessary sometimes and that's why all home birther's need a good back up plan. The hospital setting (and monitor) often leads to situations that are not necessarily the safest or most healthy choices for Mom and baby. People always argue this but the information is out there and easy to find and parents owe it to themselves and their babies to spend more time really understanding the process of birth. It is NOT a medical procedure as we treat it in the USA. If we look to other countries with MUCH lower infant mortality rates we could learn a lot. I think some women do more independant research when buying a car then they do when they have a baby!

Like Mama1976, I had severe postpartum hemoraging. My very experienced doctor had a very hard time stopping it, I needed a transfusion and I can't imagine doing all this at home. I had no complications AT ALL during my pregnancy. If I'd been home, I really question if I'd be alive today. Not related to your question really but I think women giving birth at home are taking a big chance. I don't mean to criticize. But I really think I would have died at home.

i don't understand it either! I would rather be safe then sorry!

I, initially, did not want monitors on and had this entire birth plan written out. NO meds. NO intervention. NO monitors. I wanted to experience child birth naturally and the monitors sort of confine you to the bed. You can't just get up when you want and walk around or change positions bc then they'll fall off and cause alarm. To me, that was ANNOYING and restrictive, and I saw it only as a preventative measure to hinder my goals in labor. Free movement, free breathing etc.

And I got to have all that for the first (roughly) 24 hours of labor (1-2 minutes apart) but once contractions were consistenly 30 seconds apart (some literally 10-15 seconds, couldn't catch my breath or get a break! LOL) for more than 5 hours (seemed like days) they noticed me fading and on top of that I had NOT DILATED. so they wanted to monitor the baby as though I had pitocin (which I didn't) but that intensive kind of labor for too long without progress can cause stress on the baby.

I AM SO GLAD THEY PUT THE MONITORS ON!!!!!!!!!!

it saved BOTH our lives.

had I done a home birth (which I really considered) we both would have not made it. (mostly due to a deformity in my hips, but we didn't know that at the time).

I had a birth center birth and a home birth. I was monitored on the first one, and the only reason I wasn't monitored on the home birth is because I went to fast and no one got there til his head popped out.

Here's the thing though. I don't need some monitor to tell me the baby is doing ok. Between contractions, he's wiggling around and I could tell he was doing fine.

In addition, the monitors force you to lay in bed, on your back or side (as someone else said) and those are not natural birth positions. It feels uncomfortable and forces women to think they need pain meds.

If you're high risk, or there is an issue with the baby, then yes, go to the hospital and be monitored. But if everything is fine, then why not trust that your body knows what it's doing?

I hear you, I also do not understand it. Our daughter was on a monitor for quite a while and thank goodness, she became distressed at one point, due to a lack in amniotic fluid, so they were able to replace fluids while I was still in labor..

We would have not had ANY idea this was happening.. Once she was born the doctor commented she had one of the shortest umbilical cords he had ever seen and probably it had been compressed without all of that fluid while I was in labor..

The draw back is that the mom cannot get up and walk around while the baby is being monitored, but when I needed to stand walk, get into the shower while in labor, they unattached the monitor.

Some people have preconceived ideas of how their labor is going to go.

I tried to do whatever was needed to make sure our child was born as healthy as possible. I also totally trusted my doctor and the staff at the hospital.

If it weren't for modern medicine (including drugs and monitors), I would only have one out of my three kids, so yeah, I'm with you.

:)

I don't get it either but that is me, and I totally see the other side. My Husbands niece has done a couple home births, all is well. One nice big happy family. She totally rocks and impresses with everything she does. And if there was a problem they had a very sound back up plan.

I'm currently attending childbirth classes and due with our first. This very subject was discussed in the first class. Our classes are hospital sanctioned (so, pro-monitoring), but information was imparted on both pro and anti-monitoring. Of course, the the pro's are obvious. The cons (as I can best recall) were mainly associated with internal monitoring (vs external.)
-The smallest risk is that you must be in the supine position - flat on your back - which is known to increase the discomfort of your labor as well as the length of your labor.
-The insertion of the internal fetal monitor's electrode in your baby's scalp requires the rupture your membranes. This increases your risks as well as your baby's risks of infection.
Please note, I am not offering a point of view, simply some facts provided by the nurse who facilitates our childbirth class.

The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth....by Henci Goer.

I read this a while ago, but I recall the author discussing multiple reasons it is advantageous to not be hooked up to monitors, some of which have been mentioned already.

- comfort
- if the doctor or nurse sees something going on, often times they are quick to deem it a problem and want to send mom to emergency c section, when in fact, according to the author, problems can often times correct themselves without medical intervention. I believe the author attributed the monitoring to many uneccessary c sections.
- doctors view birth as a medical thing, not as a natural thing mom's body is made to do. The monitors just add one more thing that docs have to control the situation.

The list goes on, but I don't want to do a disservice to the book. The author quotes many interesting facts and statistics I couldn't possible begin to recite accurately at this point, having read it so long ago. You should read it. Very interesting and enlightening.

* disclaimer - I am repeating what my interpretations/recollections are from a book that I read many many months ago =)

The honest answer is movement. When you're hooked up to monitors, you can't walk around, get in the water or do several other things to help your body along a natural labor path.

That being said, constant monitoring is extreme if there is no cause. At the hospital I delivered at, they put you on the monitor for a bit when you get there, then they take it off and let you move around putting you back on the monitor about as often as they check for dialation. That is unless some reason presents for constant monitoring.

At the end of the day, if it came down to choosing between two extremes, I'd be in a hospital every time.

Most people object to electronic fetal monitoring, not monitoring in general. Midwives who attend home births (and other types of births) do monitor heartbeat, they just don't use the continuous, electronic, strap on variety. They check before, during and after contractions to see how the heartbeat changes. I remember reading that the outcomes for electronically monitored babies were not any better than for non-invasively monitored babies; the major difference between the two was that EFM babies are more likely to be taken via C-section. AFter doing an awful lot of reading on the subject I opted for a birth center delivery with non-invasive monitoring. Hope that helps!

My guess as others have pointed out is they want it natural not medical. I understand that but I do have to say that without medical intervention with me, I and/or my daughter may have not lived much past the delivery. Sometimes meidcal places makes you feel like unhuman or just a number with all the drugs, machines and whiteness of the place BUT they also can be of big help if the birth does not go smoothly natural. As another poster mentioned you can ask for the machine volumes to be turned down, you just have to speak up for yourself more in a hospital. In the end it is the mom's choice.

There are reasources out there (I cannot for the life of me remember the title of the book that I read 4 years ago!) that state that there is no true evidence that monitors actually give true output. I believe the book also stated that monitors (both external and internal) have been shown to be incorrect much of the time. So while it may be showing that your baby's heatbeat is at 90b/m, it may actually be at 140b/m. Reading an incorrect monitor chart can then lead to a totally unneccessary Csection.
For my daughter's birth, the nurses were so focused on getting me "hooked up" to monitors and IVs that they wouldn't listen to me telling them that the baby was crowning. They were so busy shouting at me to lay still and hold out my arm (for the IV) and insisting that my baby was in distress due to a low heartbeat, that when my daughter started to come out, they actually held her in while yelling down the hall for a doctor!
Inevitably, she came out without the doctor present, and was fine.

I had my baby in a hospital, without drugs and with as little intervention as possible. My sons heartbeat was difficult to detect at a few points and they made me stay in bed because of it. But honestly even at the time I thought the problem was more with the stupid monitor not staying in place on my belly, and had little to do with his actual heart rate. As a result of consistent monitoring I wasn't able to move around or get into a better position to push him out. I can't guarantee that is what caused me to have to push for 2.5 hours or why I had to have an episiotomy, but I think it contributed. Most people that are anti-monitoring are anti-continuous monitoring. I would have been better off and his birth would have probably been quicker if they had just checked his heart rate intermittently and let me move around. You said you felt better knowing that the monitors made them able to fix the problem, but it's possible that there wasn't a real problem to worry about and all the beeping and alarms just caused you and the baby additional, unnecessary stress.

I know there are plenty of emergency birth situations, but much of the current obstetric practices are not evidence based (like continuous fetal monitoring) and cause more problems than they prevent. So I can totally understand why a woman would want no monitoring. I know several moms who had homebirths, though I had a hospital birth. I imagine that anyone who would have no monitoring would also not be partaking of many of the practices that lead to a lot of the birth problems, like laying on her back during labor, not eating, not moving, induction, epidural, arbitrary time limits, unsupportive caregivers, etc. so her chances of a complication are much lower. So I think that is why someone would opt for no monitoring. When I was pregnant I read Henci Goer's Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth. It's full of studies and medical discussion. After reading that I could never blindly accept that just because there is a test, that means it is necessarily the right thing for all women. I did have monitoring, a few minutes every hour. There is no way I would have had CFM unless there was some problem that required it. Frankly I think I ended up in the hospital prematurely because of monitoring. There was one decel on the strip when they were evaluating me because my water broke. So the doc backing up my midwife wanted me admitted. It could have been that I moved and the monitor lost contact for a sec or whatever because there was never any evidence of a problem after that. Result was a big waste of resources as I was stuck in the hospital for 2 days before my labor started. So though there is a place for monitoring, I can totally understand why someone would not want it.

I'm thinking that it's because they want freedom to move around and get comfy. I think that people who go all natural have a better chance of quicker delivery. Not sure completely since my first went 2 hours and the other four were planned C-Sections due to alloimmune thrombocytopenia. But it seems like the more the docs get involved before delivery, the slower the labor goes and the more complications arise. That's just my observation and thoughts but I haven't really studied it fully. =D

Once you have the monitors attached, it's really hard to walk around. When I was in labor, I wanted to walk around and so the nurses would very kindly "detach" me so that I could walk the halls. Honestly, I was hooked up to the monitor for 3 hours, walking the halls and eating lunch... with a partial pro-lapse chord which wouldn't be detected on a fetal monitor.

The monitors are also loud, but you can ask that the volume be turned off. After the emergency c-section my husband asked the nurse to turn off the sounds so that we could both get some sleep!

A lot of people don't want monitoring bc they see birth as a natural process rather than a medical condition. Mothers can and have done it all on their own if needed. My husband and I watched a lot of home births online when we were considering how to approach our current pregnancy. I always hate being hooked up to the monitors bc you just can't get comfy at all. So basically once you go to the hospital you are making your birth experience more medical less a normal part of a woman and child's life experience. That being said, I too had the cord wrapped around my first baby's neck a couple times and they were just about to wheel me to the OR but I got him out in time and he is just great. So I do see the case for monitoring as well. I was going to go the home birth route but my hubs was more comfortable in the hospital and I can totally understand that, I just do natural labor at the hospital. In part bc and issue in my back prevents me from using epidurals. But now having gone the natural route and experiencing labor albeit in a hospital, I do have an overall appreciation for the all natural experience. So that is why I think many women do want to steer clear of monitoring, they want to have the experience of normal child birth as opposed to a medically directed procedure where you get a child at the end. I see merit on both sides.

I think hospitals are finally starting to get wise. Many offer home-birth environments, midwives on staff, and they are finally getting off the formula money teat to help with successful breastfeeding and offer certified lactation consultants. I delivered at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago and they let me walk around for as long as I wanted and only monitored externally. The room was cozy and my whole family was there. While I did opt for an epidural for the last 45mins or so of labor, hospitals are very respectful of your birthing plan. I think it is possible to have the best of both worlds, if that's what you seek. Minimally invasive, natural, someone else to clean up your bloody sheets (haha)... It's a matter of picking the right hospital or right environment to have your baby. I didn't want to assume the risk of having my baby at home (even though I am 10-15mins away from the nearest hospital) but still wanted a nurturing birth. The hospital I chose made me feel empowered and I had a wonderful birthing experience with my two children! We have so many options so women can pick the birth that's right for them.