older child in birthing room?

[peggyfromwastate]

Hi- We are not really that close to birthing time (I'm at 20 weeks now), but my older daughter is interested in the process (she is eight) and I was wondering if anyone has thoughts on an older sibling watching the birth? I was never really a fan of this myself, but she is so interested and watches "A baby story" with me, and even watched a C-section one time on one of those shows. My husband was kind of traumatized by the birth of the twins (his comment was that there was a lot of blood), but I guess he wasn't well prepared! I guess he'll get used to it when he does his rotation.

Anyway, any opinions out there?

[SueC]

Well, it might not be a bad idea, if she really wants to. Maybe if there was someone in the waiting room that she could go sit with if it did get to be too much for her. I'd think about how her presence will make you feel. On the one hand, it might be a really neat memory for her to get to see her new baby brother or sister be born, on the other hand she might be too much of a distraction for you. I'm probably not one to comment, since my kids are only 4 and 2 and way too young to attend the birth (plus I know it would really freak them out!).

I think this topic is one of those that can easily go the way of epidural vs natural childbirth, breast vs bottle, etc....but anyway....

I know of two families who had their older child present at the birth of the younger. In both cases, the girls were about 3 years old and everything went fine. BUT, they also did a lot of preparation for this. One key thing to make this work is that you need to have an adult there for the child whose sole responsibility is keeping an eye on the child and making sure they are ok. And that adult needs to be ok with seeing the birth too! Both families also talked about what would happen during the birth, what mom would be doing, looked at books/videos, etc before the birth so there weren't any surprises. In one case, the child wasn't at the hospital until right before the delivery. I think that was a good idea to keep her from getting bored. In the other case, the child was there, but she went in and out with her grandma, played outside, etc while waiting.

I think it is really important for her to be prepared for what she might see. Sounds like that is already happening from seeing "A Baby Story". I just thought of that as I remembered a woman in our childbirth class who was a bit traumatized from seeing her mom give birth -- but if I remember right, she didn't really get a lot of preparation or have anyone keeping an eye on her. (I think she was around 10 yo or so when it happened).

[PrincessFiona]

Many hospitals offer special courses for siblings to prepare them to be there for the big moment.

I guess my thinking would be to ask you how your other deliveries went...I know that Amanda really wanted to be there for Aidan's birth..and she is almost 8, so I really considered it. What stopped me was the fact that my other deliveries had had complications...and that I'm perhaps not a 'brave trooper' when it comes to the final moments of delivery . I was afraid that if I cried out or something that it would frighten Amanda and I was afraid that there would again be complications (I hemmorhaged last time) that could potentially again be frightening to her.

If my other deliveries had been less eventful, I would have had let all three of my children be there 8)

kris

[peggyfromwastate]

Thanks for the input! I think it could perhaps be a moot point because I think that my husband wouldn't be comfortable with Kate in the room with us (he is really sensitive to seeing family members in pain, and I think that he'd be too worried she'd be in pain watching the process, etc...) Anyway, I was just curious if anyone had been through this with success! My first vaginal delivery was fast (Kate was a C-section, so I didn't go through the whole process with her, but the twins were VBAC) and I did get an epidural, so there was no screaming, cursing, what have you. But I don't know that I'll get the epidural in time with this delivery, since we have to plan on at least 45 minutes to get to the hospital, then however long it takes us to get processed, then it's likely I'll be too far along for the epidural...

Anyway, I'm still thinking about it!! No one has done anything like this in my family before, and I think it could be a really neat experience, but ultimately I don't think DH will go for it. I might bring it up anyway!

[peggyfromwastate]

Thanks for that idea . I think that sounds great-- it just might work for us! Now it just depends on if the baby is cooperative and doesn't decide to be born in the middle of the night...