Safety of a Homebirth
Having your child in the home? Who would even think of 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 growing group of women who realize the benefits of a homebirth and having your baby at home.
The practice of homebirths is usually called midwifery. 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 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 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 aside, lets look at why a lot of women are having babies at home rather than hospitals. What benefits are making women choose homebirths?
First, when you have a midwife present, this can cause the time of labor to be reduced. Most women don’t realize that the use of pain medications although seemingly helpful in regards to pain, actually slows the labor down. This really causes more pain and the labor actuallly lasts longer.
Second, midwifery techniques in reality reduce the need for forceps or other intrusive devices during delivery. The process of allowing the birth and delivery to happen naturally is what reduces the need for those devices.
Third, is it reduces the possibility of a cesarean delivery. Most c-sections happen when during labor, it was thought that a natural birth process 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 many more, but I am sure most women in pregnancy would agree 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.