Rejected petition Support for Home Births in Northern Ireland

The NHS needs to better support home birth in Northern Ireland. Community midwives are not all properly trained or prepared to assist a mother who wishes for a natural delivery at home.

Most expectant parents are being bullied into a hospital birth with scare tactics in the way of fear of a medical emergency which could result in the death of the baby, mother or both.

There needs to be more support & encouragement for home births to low risk pregnancies. There is no evidence to say that planned home births are more unsafe than hospital births.

Low risk birthing mothers going into hospital are risking unnecessary medical interventions which in turn can cause a low risk birth to become a high risk birth.

We feel that with more support for home births with low risk deliveries, could improve birth experiences for expectant parents, and could save the NHS a lot of money.