birth opinions

I had my first “you’re crazy to have a home birth” comments from a friend. It makes me sad that birth in American is considered a dangerous act. Birth is a normal, natural bodily function and midwife assisted homebirth is safe, it’s better for baby and momma, and it’s a much more rewarding experience. You get a higher level of care from a midwife than you do from a busy doctor and they carefully monitor your health to look for any complications along the way. Midwives check urine, blood, heart rate, they order ultrasounds, check uterus position, offer nutritional guidance, and give you emotional support throughout your pregnancy and after the baby is born. Doctors are great for when there is a problem, but they aren’t needed in a healthy birth. Women give birth to babies. We were designed to do it. It is a natural act.

Did you know many health insurance plans, including mine, cover midwife care? Do you think insurance companies would cover homebirth if they considered it risky? Would states give licenses to midwives if they thought it was risky?

Midwifery is an accepted and safe method of care. It is not some weird voodoo witchcraft. Why do people think it is so strange? In many countries, Western ones included, you always use a midwife unless there are complications in the pregnancy. If there is nothing wrong, there is no need to go to a doctor.

I spent the past year weighing the benefits and risks of choosing to have a baby in a hospital or at home with an experienced midwife. For me, the choice was a no brainer. I see more risks associated with hospital births and nothing but benefits from having a home birth. Of course, if there are complications with my pregnancy, I will switch to having a hospital birth. But I’m doing everything I can to eat well and exercise so I can hopefully avoid complications.

Please respect my informed choices, as I respect yours.

Please read the British Home Journal’s report on Home births.

An Excerpt from The British Medial Journals study: “Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives: large prospective study in North America”

Individual rates of medical intervention for home births were consistently less than half those in hospital, whether compared with a relatively low risk group (singleton, vertex, 37 weeks or more gestation) that will have a small percentage of higher risk births or the general population having hospital births (table 3). Compared with the relatively low risk hospital group, intended home births were associated with lower rates of electronic fetal monitoring (9.6% versus 84.3%), episiotomy (2.1% versus 33.0%), caesarean section (3.7% versus 19.0%), and vacuum extraction (0.6% versus 5.5%). The caesarean rate for intended home births was 8.3% among primiparous women and 1.6% among multiparous women.