Is it Okay to Call Someone when They Are in Labor at Home?

Calling During and Coming to a Homebirth

If you know someone who is pregnant and is planning on having a homebirth or you yourself are pregnant and you plan to have a homebirth here are two questions to consider about being at the labor and birth and calling during the labor and birth.

Who Gets To Come?
One in Labor - When you are the one who is going to be having the baby you get to decide who gets to be there.
One Not in Labor - Unless you are invited you should plan to come to the birth, you may ask when you can come to see the baby.

Who Gets To Call?
One in Labor - You probably will not want anyone to be calling during the time that you are in labor. It is likely that you will not be the only person at your homebirth, you can have someone, such as you partner be in charge of making the initial phone calls, letting people know that you are in labor. There is no rule that you have to tell someone that you have gone into labor or for that matter keep them updated with changes in the labor, if you want to wait till the entire birth is over and just call be to tell them that the baby was born that is fine too. Don't call if you know that someone is at their home in labor.

One Not in Labor - You may politely ask if you are going to be keeping people updated, if so then you can ask if you can be one of the people updated.

When you are the one that is pregnant or your partner is the one who is going to giving birth and you would like to let people know about it there are some ways that you can keep multiple
people updated on the birth.

Post Myspace Bulletins
If you use Myspace you can post bulletins to let people know about the labor and birth.

Email Your Address Book
One an email that can apply to everyone that you want to know about your baby and send it to everyone that is in your email address book.

Have a Train of Phone Calls
Have one main person that you can call and update about the labor and birth and have them be in charge of calling people who want updates about the labor and birth.

Don't feel bad if you intended to alert a lot of people about the birth and during the course of labor you weren't able to. People will understand.