Having the baby in your home? Who would even think of such a thing? Didn’t that only happen back in the early days of our country when doctor’s had to go out to the prairie and deliver babies?
Not quite. There is a growing group of women who realize the benefits of a homebirth and having your baby at home.
This practice of having your baby at home is called midwifery. Although usually not nurses or doctors, the people who are in midwifery are professionally regulated. I myself have seen the steady rise of homebirths through my practice as a San Diego certified midwife.
The people, generally women, who perform this line of work are called homebirth midwives. Midwives is the term most people are familiar with and means a person who helps during childbirth by providing support of the labor and delivery.
Now a midwife is usually not a nurse or doctor because in general a midwife generally believes that pregnancy and births are natural events and should be allowed to proceed naturally without drugs. This is contrasted with the medical model which believes that pregnancy and delivery should be accompanied by medicine to assist and improve the situation.
With that aside, lets look at why a lot of women are having babies at home rather than hospitals. What are the benefits that are causing women to have homebirths?
First off, with the continued presence of the midwife, the length of labor can be reduced. Most women don’t realize that the use of pain medications although seemingly helpful in regards to pain, actually slows the labor down. This really causes more pain and the labor actuallly lasts longer.
Second, the techniques of midwifery actually reduces the likelihood of the need for forceps or other operative devices during delivery. The technique of letting the birth and delivery to occur naturally is what reduces the need to use those devices.
Third, is it reduces the possibility of a cesarean delivery. Most cesareans are performed because during labor, somehow a consensus was made that a natural vaginal birth was not possible. Either the safety of the mother was in mind or the safety of the baby. When in reality the complication was created because the natural birth process wasn’t allowed to happen.
These are just 3 of the benefits of having a natural birth at home. There are plenty more benefits, but most women would agree for pregnancy these are 3 huge benefits.
So even though some might call it strange to have a child at home, recent studies indicate that allowing a natural birth to happen is much safer for the mom and the baby. With over 300 births attended as a homebirth midwife in San Diego, this has proven to be the case time and time again.