Having your baby at home? Who does such things? 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 so. There is a large group of women who are discovering the benefts of having a baby at home, or homebirth as it is sometimes called.
It is called midwifery the practice of having your baby at home. 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 a more common term that people are familiar with and means a person who attends childbirth and provides support during labor and delivery.
Now why a midwife is usually not a doctor or nurse is because the practice of having your baby at home, or midwifery is generally the belief that pregnancy and birth are natural normal events. 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 reasons why women are choosing homebirths?
First off, with the continued presence of the midwife, the length of labor can be reduced. Most women aren’t told that pain medications actually slows down the labor, even though it helps with the pain. This actually creates more pain and makes the labor last longer.
Second, midwifery techniques in reality reduce the need for forceps or other intrusive devices during delivery. The process of naturally allowing the birh and delivery to occur is what causes the reduction of the need for those devices.
Third, cesarean delivery possbilities are reduced. Most cesareans are performed because during labor, somehow a consensus was made that a natural vaginal birth was not possible. Either it was the baby’s safety that was in mind or the mother’s safety. When in reality the complication was created because the natural birth process wasn’t allowed to happen.
These are 3 benefits when you have a natural homebirth. 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.