Should you have a Homebirth?

Having your baby at 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 so.  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 usually not nurses or doctors, the people who are in 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 a midwife is usually not a doctor or nurse is because the practice of having your baby at home, or midwifery is generally the belief that pregnancy and birth are natural normal 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, when you have a midwife present, this can cause the time of labor to be reduced.  Most women aren't told that pain medications actually slows down the labor, even though it helps with the pain.  This in reality causes the pain and the labor to last much longer.

Second, midwifery techniques in reality reduce the need for forceps or other intrusive devices during delivery.  The technique of letting the birth and delivery to occur naturally is what reduces the need to use those devices.

Third, is it reduces the possibility of a cesarean delivery.  Most cesareans are performed because during labor, somehow a consensus was made that a natural vaginal birth was not possible.  Either it was the baby's safety that was in mind or the mother's safety.  Well in all actuality that complication was caused because the natural process was not allowed to happen.

These are 3 benefits when you have a natural homebirth.  There are plenty more benefits, but most women would agree for pregnancy these are 3 huge benefits. 

So although, most might consider it strange to want to have a child at home, studies have shown that allowing the natural birth process to happen is safer for the mother 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.