This flies in the face of the government’s commitment to bring services closer to home and to offer women choice about where they give birth.
I asked my partner to get into the pool with me as I could feel the baby pushing to get out. In between contractions I told him to get her as she came out.
I swear she swam like a frog as she popped out and came up to the surface. I was exhausted and for about 10 minutes or so the three of us floated on the side of the pool with baby asleep on my chest until the midwife arrived.
It remains the most incredible and intimate moment of my life and I don’t regret for a moment that we chose to have her in the comfort of our own home.
I am the second oldest of 10 biological children born at home and, as the article pointed out, am in a category represented by only 2 percent of the population.
My 105-pound, beautiful, active, incredibly healthy mother wouldn’t have it any other way. She loves the comfort and privacy that a home birth allows.
Many are quick to point out that it is irresponsible and dangerous to choose home birth. I assert that in the majority of cases, this is not true. Birth is not a medical process.
If you’re newly pregnant, chances are you have never heard the truth about why homebirth is a safer choice for low-risk pregnancies. And if you’re not newly pregnant, it is never to late to consider your options and give birth to your baby at home.
“The first intervention in natural childbirth is the one that a healthy woman does herself when she walks out the front door of her own home in labour.”
I trust birth. Birth is inherently safe. Messing with it in any way compromises safety. It is an innate biological capability for most women to grow a baby and then EJECT a baby with no help from anyone. Midwives are NOT the guardians of normal birth. Birth is normal with or without midwives. But what midwives should be doing is acting as the guardian of the mother and baby’s space, so they can do what they were made to do. Most women want that—but some don’t. They just want to be in their own little world with no intrusion. That doesn’t mean that birth is any less safe.
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In many countries it is believed that the safest option for all women is to give birth in hospital. However, observational studies of increasingly better quality and in different settings suggest that planned home birth in many places can be as safe as planned hospital birth and with less intervention and fewer complications.
 As the American resurgence of Home Birth began in the 1970s, there was little evidence of its safety. Today, we have wide support of the scientific literature to prove that a Home Birth is not only as safe, if not safer, a place to give birth, but offers a more gentle, compassionate and respectful birth to mom and baby. "It has never been scientifically proven that the hospital is a safer place than home for a woman who has had an uncomplicated pregnancy to have her baby. Studies of planned home births in developed countries with women who have had uncomplicated pregnancies have shown sickness and death rates for mother and baby equal to or better than hospital birth statistics for women with uncomplicated pregnancies." ~World Health Organization (WHO) report A Sister Site of the Trust Birth Initiative. |
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