I’d like to start by saying that our family has been very supportive our decision to home birth. They were just as supportive when we had a Birth Center birth with our son West. I really appreciate that. However I recently ran into an acquaintance who used several fear tactics to convince me that home births are dangerous and that basically I’d be killing my baby if I had a home birth. She works in a hospital and her husband is a family practice doctor who delivers babies. I was caught off guard by her comments but I knew enough to know that she wasn’t’ in least bit educated on home birth safety and all her horror stories she told me were not home birth related and the outcomes would not have been different no matter where the mother birthed the baby.
“The hospital doesn’t react quicker if you are giving birth there, it doesn’t influence mortality rates. In hospital, there is not a sterile team waiting in the operating room in anticipation of an emergency, it takes them about a half hour to be ready. In principle, if you are giving birth at home, it is the same. The moment the midwife calls to say a medical transfer is necessary, the gynecologist brings the appropriate team together.”(source)
Two recent studies, one conducted in the US with over 5,000 births and the other one in Europe with over 500,000, concluded that having a birth at home with a midwife was as safe as having birth in a hospital, and depending on your view of unnecessary interventions (that can often lead to birth trauma and interfere with breastfeeding) home births can be considered safer.
“Planned home birth for low risk women in North America using certified professional midwives was associated with lower rates of medical intervention but similar intrapartum and neonatal mortality to that of low risk hospital births in the United States.” (source)
The only reason I am sharing this data on my blog is to one arm our very supportive family with information that will shield them from other people scaring them about our birth choices.
Please keep in mind that our view on home birth isn’t “home birth or nothing”… ultimately our goal is to have a beautiful healthy baby girl in our arms and as long as that can happen I will be happy. Currently I am low risk and a great candidate for a home birth.
Good for you for researching your choices and knowing the facts. There are so many people (friends, family, strangers on the internet) who will try to scare you.
Most of the horrors they’ve seen in the hospital have been caused by what was done in the hopsital.
Have your baby at home if it is the safest thing for you to do. If it is no longer the safest thing to do, then go to the hospital. You’re right- its not about homebirth or nothing, its about you and your child’s safety.
Carrie
Mom to 2 home born
I was watching a video on how the increased c-section rate is due to policy changes versus the actual need. It is sad that many of the people who tell me that their baby “would have died” if it wasn’t born in a hospital actually have the hospitals practices and procedures to blame for putting them in the “emergency” situation they were in, inductions, time limits, epidurals, constant fetal monitoring.**
Anyway congrats on your two home births. I am hoping this will be our second baby born in the water. Oh the glorious water!!
**I do know that REAL emergency situations arise and I am grateful we have all the medical technology available to deal with them.