"Not supportive of homebirth"

I booked with Perth for my pregnancy and had expressed my preference for a homebirth which my community midwife was supportive of as I had a straightforward pregnancy.

However when my waters broke, I phoned Perth and the midwife (a different one) could not have been less helpful. It was 9am and there were midwives on that day and she refused to come out and see me and I felt she didn’t want to support me in my birth preferences at all. She made me go in for a visit - which was the last thing I wanted to do but I felt pressurised into it. This was just the beginning of a really stressful latent phase of labour.

Ultimately I didn’t feel supported in my birth preferences which was a huge shock and I didn’t get the homebirth I wanted because there didn’t seem to be any support there at the end. You end up feeling like you’re inconveniencing them with the plan you made with them! I would be aware of community midwives supporting homebirth because some clearly don’t actually support it. It’s not a surprise the homebirth rate is so low in Tayside with this approach.

So I am writing this feedback to tell others my experience that if you want supported in homebirth at Perth or Dundee it obviously depends on what community midwife you speak to when you go into labour.

I have since been informed that the staffing levels are sometimes not high enough to keep Perth open even as a midwife unit, or to support homebirth - I think this is really poor care and if they want everyone to just give birth in ninewells then say that to the ladies instead of pretending you can offer something you can’t.

It just adds more stress when you should be focusing on getting your baby here safely. When I went to ninewells I felt very dismissed for having planned a homebirth and nobody really seemed to care about any of my preferences. I felt like I was on a conveyer belt and needed to just go with whatever they wanted me to do.

Overall a really disappointing experience, and I don’t think the midwives or doctors realise what a huge effect this stress has on someone’s experience.