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AugA home birth dad has invited other home birth fathers to answer ten questions. Read what nine dads have to say about the home births of their children.
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AugFrom a Dad to Dads
*The 7 Secrets of Being A Home Birth Dad *
By Ven Batista
Ven Batista wrote this article after his wife, Bel, had her second daughter at home in London.
All Dads-to-be are nervous, or at least skeptical, when their wife/partner first mentions the idea of having a home birth. This is nothing to be ashamed of – us guys are conditioned by a lifetimes constant bombardment that Doctors know best and that it is our patriarch’s duty to always make the safest choices. That’s why when my wife Bel first brought up the idea for the birth of our second daughter, my first train of thought was about risk. Images of John Hurt’s chest cracking open and a tiny, evil alien being screeching its bloody arrival to the universe ran through my mind. I looked up at the walls of our apartment and wondered whether an arterial spray of blood could ever be washed out of that particular shade of off-white.
Ten minutes’ googling dissolved my misconception that home birth is reckless (with Bel peering over my shoulder and directing me to websites she’d already read). In a nutshell, there are studies for and against, but if you listen to your own common sense you will probably agree it’s just as safe, if not safer. You can find all that stuff for yourself, what I want to really want to talk about is the second train of though that ran through my head – why?
Why have a home birth? My wife had her reasons and she laid them out for me. Bel had a horrible experience in hospital with our first daughter and that was a big part of it. As Bel explained it to me I nodded and said ‘umm’ a lot and was happy to go along with it because I knew it was what she wanted. But I never had reasons of my own – from my selfish perspective as a Dad – until after I had experienced it for myself. These reasons are the 7 secrets I want to share with you Dads now so that you can appreciate your home birth the first time round.
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JulInvolved Daddies —
{This is one of the most (if not the most) extreme birth we have included. Be aware, as babe seems to be under water a long time, in actuality it is only 30 seconds. Below, I will add some of the father’s comments on this from the video Youtube page.}
Ocean Birth of Sonoma (via xiodanse)
OCEAN BIRTH OF A BABY BOY!- IN THE SUMMER OF 1994, WE (THE DANSE FAMILY) TRAVEL TO SPAIN TO BIRTH OUR SON “SONOMA” IN A TIDE POOL ON THE SEA COAST OF THE COSTA BLANCA- UNASSISTED AND UNDER THE MIDDAY SUMMER SUN- “SONOMA” IS BORN UNDER WATER AND SWIMS TETHERED TO HIS UMBILICAL CORD- MOM (NICA) FROM HONDURAS HAS AN ECSTATIC BIRTH WHILE DAD (ROE) SUPPORTS AND VIDEOS-
we shipped an american van to europe equipped with an inflatable zodiac boat- after numerous days of searching the sea coast with all the kids adventuring- we found this ancient coastal roman rock quarry which had become exposed to the sea- we then spent days relocating many days relocating many hundreds of beautiful tide pool animals to ready our birthing pool- we camped there for 10 days before and 10 days after the birth!
the water temperature in the open ocean outside the birthing pool was about 70- but inside our protected natural pool the temperature was a perfect 95- so sonoma could swim without risk of triggering the differentiation of temperature switch to breathing response- giving him more time to swim
the salinity of uterine life- the amniotic fluid is about 9 ppt (parts per thousand) while the ocean where sonoma was born was 34- much saltier- yet he moved from a salty environment to another- and opened his eyes in the tide pool with no notice-
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JulAway We Go - The Pain Is So Enlightening Clip (via FocusFeatures)
My husband and I watched “Away We Go” last weekend. I was sort of blown away by the line, “Midwives and Doulas are for women whose husbands are clueless and don’t want to be involved…” What? Have you ever heard such nonsense?! Had this been a real family, I’m afraid this daddy would be in for the surprise of his life.
Truly involved daddies often jump at the opportunity to home birth, to catch the baby, to be able to fully cooperate in care decisions with his wife and their support team — instead of negotiating with hospital staff to honor their birth preferences — or even decide with the mother to birth their child in the same privacy he or she was conceived.
Look for us to feature some links and stories especially for dads about the benefits of home birth.
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Jul2008 Article on Home Birth in Baltimore
LIKE ANY 8-DAY-OLD BABY, Jimmy Gaffney spends most of his time either nursing or sleeping. Peacefully alternating between the two while cradled in his mother’s arms in the family’s sun-dappled Hamilton backyard, the robust newborn looks like a promotional photograph for parenthood. And yet, so far as the state and city of his birth are concerned, this baby does not officially exist.
He was born at home, in May, with only his mother and father, Alana and Matt Gaffney, in attendance (his two excited siblings, who had slept through most of the five-hour labor that culminated in his 4 a.m. birth, came in just as their father was placing the freshly born baby on his mother’s chest). The family is in no rush to notify the authorities about Jimmy’s birth; they have been taking it easy for the past week, sticking close to home and bonding with the new addition while Alana recovers. A call to register his birth with the Baltimore City Health Department will summon a visit from a home nurse, and the Gaffneys are not quite ready for outsiders, particularly bureaucrats asking a lot of questions about a process they regard as utterly natural—and completely private.
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JulThis past Friday, the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology released an article online about a study–more accurately, a meta-analysis–by Dr. Joseph R. Wax of the obstetrics and gynecology department at Maine Medical Center and his colleagues. The analysis reached the loud conclusion that homebirth, while having significantly better intervention and morbidity rates than planned hospital birth, had a threefold neonatal mortality rate. This is in sharp contrast to previous studies that have been done on the subject, which reached the conclusion that homebirth is as safe as a hospital birth for low-risk women. Bad news for homebirth supporters, right?
…Not exactly.
Continue Reading “Sorry Guys, Homebirth is Still Safe.”
 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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