Having your child in the home? Who would do such a thing? Didn’t that just happen when there weren’t many hospitals and doctor’s had to go to the home to deliver babies?
Not quite. 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 not doctors or nurses, people in this line of work called 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 why the midwife generally isn’t a doctor or nurse is because having your baby at home, or midwifery, is usually the belief that pregnancy and delivery are natural events. This is in stark contrast with the medical model which relies on medicine to assist and improve the pregnancy and delivery.
With that taken care of, lets examine why women are choosing to have babies at home. What are the benefits that are causing women to have homebirths?
First, with the midwife’s continued presence, the labor time can actually be reduced. Most women do not know that pain medications, although they do help with pain, actually makes the labor slow down. This actually creates more pain and makes the labor last longer.
Second, midwifery practices actually causes a reduction in the need for forceps and other devices in a delivery. The process of naturally allowing the birh and delivery to occur is what causes the reduction of the need for those devices.
Third, is it reduces the possibility of a cesarean delivery. Most cesareans that happen in labor were because it was thought that a vaginal birth was not possible. Either it was the baby’s safety that was in mind or the mother’s safety. Well in reality, complications were caused when the natural process was stopped and not allowed to continue.
These were 3 benefits of having a homebirth naturally. 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.
