"Compassion and care following unexpected breech home birth"

As the one-year anniversary now approaches, I wanted to take the time to recognise and reflect upon the care given to me following my very unexpected breech home birth of my second daughter.

After only a couple hours of very irregular contractions at 39 weeks, my water broke at home in the shower at about 1am and I rang SJOG Bunbury to let them know I would be on my way.

However, our little miss was just too impatient, and ended up making her arrival 10 minutes later – and decided she would meet us bum first instead of the traditional head-down approach. A quick call out to my mother led to a 000 call, and we were lucky enough to reach a patient, caring call-taker who was able to keep my mother calm while my husband delivered the baby on the bathroom floor.

As it was a busy night, we appreciated the call-taker staying on the line until the paramedics were able to arrive about 20 minutes later, making sure bub and I were ok, not panicking and not in immediate danger.

When Lee and Ross (SJA) arrived, after an initial assessment – I was so touched to see them take the time to go and find my maternity record and sit down and go through my birth preferences with me – even though it had already gone more than a little pear shaped. They were mindful of my preference for a physiological third stage and respected my request for skin to skin; allowing my daughter to travel with me in the ambulance. When we arrived at the Bunbury ED, I also appreciated the fact that they had rung ahead, and then also conducted a thorough bedside handover - ensuring that the ED clinicians were made aware of my birth preferences as well.

The stars had aligned for us that night – and we were lucky enough that our ED Nurse, Deanne – was a trained midwife, and was happy to take on my post-partum care in ED, and continued to advocate for my daughter and I. Staff took the time to rearrange an ED bay for us, to give us low lighting and as much privacy as possible, while also respecting my wish for my daughter to remain on my chest for as many of the clinical assessments as possible.

After a quick once over from the Paediatrician, we were sent up to BRH Maternity ward, where we met the lovely Asha for our brief stay. With all acute issues under control, Asha took the time to debrief with us, making sure both my husband and I were ok, and not in shock. We appreciated the little things she did – making sure we had all the supplies we needed, hyping up my husband for his amazing midwifery efforts (especially with a breech delivery!) and listing him as the midwife on my daughter's little crib card.

After clearance from our GPO and the Paeds team, we were then transferred to SJOG for the remainder of our post-partum care (had to make the most of those private insurance premiums somehow!), where we received fantastic support with breastfeeding and general post-partum recovery.

Despite the birth going so differently to how I ever could have imagined – I still felt empowered, informed and in control – and I thank every person who was part of our journey and the compassion and respect they showed us.