It brings it all back home ...

Maria Moulton leaned on husband Jimmy’s lap and stared into her daughters’ doll house in the family sitting room as she gave birth to her third daughter, Maggie.

Aged 32, it was the Newfoundland-born and Cork-based woman’s second home birth - the couple’s first daughter, Lily, four, was born in CUMH.

The idea of home birth occurred to Maria at a yoga class during her first pregnancy. “We were midway through the pregnancy - talking to family and friends, we said we’d stick with the hospital and next time go for home birth,” says Maria, who published her book, Mammy Diaries, last year.

Anna’s birth at home three years ago went so well that Maria had no second thoughts for Maggie’s. “The best place to give birth is where you’re most comfortable and I’m most comfortable at home. When you’re going to hospital, you’re thinking ‘do I go now? Is it too early? Will I be sent back home?’ At home, you’re there. And there was no separation from my other daughters - Mummy didn’t disappear,” she says.

For Maria and Jimmy, 27, one deciding factor was continuity. “I saw the same midwife from the beginning of pregnancy to delivery. She knew everything about us. In the hospital, you see different midwives at every appointment. Childbirth’s an important time. You want to be surrounded by people you know,” she says.

With Maggie, now six months, Maria’s waters broke as she bent down to plug in the computer. “When I woke at 7.30 next morning, I had the kind of contractions that told me things were started. I wasn’t due for another two weeks and I’d planned to borrow a birthing ball from a friend. Now, things weren’t going to plan but I needed that ball - I wanted that ball. It was a Sunday and Jimmy was running around trying to get an exercise ball, waiting for Aldi to open. For Anna, I’d used it for early labour. I’d bounced up and down on it. With Maggie, I leaned over it during every contraction and breathed.

“I’d done gentle birth classes. The breathing, plus my husband holding a hot water bottle to the small of my back, really helped with the pain. For me, there’s a point about 10 minutes before the girls are born when, if someone told me ‘you’ve got another 10 hours of this’, I’d say ‘no way’, but if I know I’m nearly there it’s easy peasy,” she says.

As soon as Jimmy knew Maggie’s birth was imminent, he phoned his parents, who had earlier brought Lily and Anna to the park. By the time Maggie was born, after a seven-hour labour, both girls were in the next room. “Maggie let out a great big cry and Anna, with big eyes, said ‘there’s a baby in the sitting room’. The midwife showed them the placenta, saying this had been the baby’s house for nine months. They were fascinated.

“Home birth made birth make more sense to me. You see so many images of birth on TV and there’s always something going wrong, lots of anxiety. For us, there was none of that. It really brought home that birth doesn’t have to be like they portray. For anyone watching, Maggie’s birth was probably very boring: every few minutes, a woman bends over a ball and moans - repeat for seven hours. In hospital, I wasn’t allowed [for safety reasons] to carry Lily in my arms. I had to push her in a trolley. At home, I was a mother straightaway,” she says.

Having given birth to her first two children in Florida, where, in hospital, she had her own “private room and your partner could room in with you”, mum-of-four Jenny Twomey felt, in Ireland, a home birth would best replicate that comfortable environment. Her younger children, Julia, three, and Milo, two months, were born at home in Fennel’s Bay, Crosshaven. “I’m not anti-hospital. I’d go in a heartbeat if there was anything amiss, but I’m fortunate to have noncomplicated pregnancies,” she says.

Milo’s birth in May was quick. “I was in my room, taking a nap. When I woke, I felt my waters had broken. I called Brian. He helped me into our en-suite and that confirmed it. The contractions started immediately, quite strong and intense. Brian rang our midwife straightaway. He filled the birthing pool and I got in - that was my pain relief.

“Giving birth was a beautiful, quiet experience. I was in my own en-suite, in dim light in the birthing pool. My in-laws had taken the other children for their tea and when they got back Milo was there. For me, it was a very comforting, comfortable, intimate experience - that’s what birth should be.”

Mary Cronin, who attended Jenny, has 18 years of experience as a home-birth midwife. She loves the connection she develops with women who give birth at home. “You get to know them so well. I’d attended Jenny for her previous birth, so when it came to Milo I knew she was well able to give birth. I saw Jenny the morning of the day Milo was born and I told her I couldn’t see her going beyond that night.

“I got the call that evening and when I got to her house I arrived into silence. Jenny was just about to get into the pool. It was 7pm and Milo was born half an hour later. Jenny made it all look so easy,” she says.

¦ Home birth mums Maria Moulton and Jenny Twomey feature on From Here To Maternity on RTE One at 8.30pm on Sunday night.

Arranging a home birth

¦ There were 177 home births attended by independent domiciliary midwives in Ireland in 2010 compared with 245 in 2001.

¦ There are 18 community midwives nationwide with some areas of the country under-represented.

¦ Any woman with a low-risk pregnancy should be able to have a home birth. The WHO says at least 85% of pregnancies are low-risk.

¦ For information about arranging a home birth, visit www.homebirth.ie. Book in with a midwife as early as week six to eight of the pregnancy. For information about home births in HSE South, phone [phone].

¦ Cost of home birth nationally is approximately €3,500, though fees can fluctuate. The HSE will pay the midwife €2,400 and the rest is paid by the client. Private health insurance companies cover this cost.