Giving birth at home is once again gaining in popularity. Until the first part of the 20th century this is how women brought their newborns into the world, but as hospitals gained in popularity, especially in the 40's, home births went out the door for the more clinical style hospital birth.
I feel very blessed that we have an opportunity to have a home birth for our third child. I wish I could have done it with all three. Although, in all fairness, my daughter's birth was overall a good experience and one I would hope for again if I went the route of going to a hospital.
While home births are gaining in popularity, I think there is still a lot of confusion about them. I know I didn't fully understand how it worked when I first started looking into them several years ago. One benefit we have today is that now that home births are more popular there is more information easily available about them and finding an experienced midwife has also gotten easier.
Certainly there are many that would question why in the world you'd choose to have a child in your home. It doesn't take much searching to find passionate advocates for both hospital births and home births and both sides have a variety of statistics that they use to support their beliefs (see here and here for against home births and here and here for pro home births). For several generations now we have been trained to believe that hospitals are the only place to have a baby safely. There is a system that has been set up that we are to follow, starting with the beginning of pregnancy and one that continues forward through the life of a child. While I am not here to tell you that no one should have a hospital birth, that certainly isn't true in my opinion, I do think that home births should be considered as an option. Every woman should consider all of her options and educated herself to make the best decision for her baby and her. We were designed to have babies and have been doing so since humans first came into existence. Some people embrace the idea that our bodies can give birth without a lot of assistance and others feel lead to have as much help surrounding the birth as possible. Are either wrong? No. For me, the issue comes more about the freedom to decide what is best for my baby's and my body. Either route someone chooses to go, there are going to be not so perfect outcomes and even deaths. What would truly be fantastic is if the two styles of giving birth could more greatly overlap giving women a far greater advantage to delivering a healthy baby without the use of drugs or other unnecessary procedures.
When I first started looking into home births it was overwhelming to figure out how the whole process worked. If you follow the standard protocol, things are fairly simple and there doesn't need to be a lot of decision making. You find a doctor that is in your insurance plan and then follow what they tell you to do. Home births fall into a category of their own and depending on what state you live in, the laws that govern midwives and the freedom to have a birth at home varies.
I feel very blessed that we have an opportunity to have a home birth for our third child. I wish I could have done it with all three. Although, in all fairness, my daughter's birth was overall a good experience and one I would hope for again if I went the route of going to a hospital.
While home births are gaining in popularity, I think there is still a lot of confusion about them. I know I didn't fully understand how it worked when I first started looking into them several years ago. One benefit we have today is that now that home births are more popular there is more information easily available about them and finding an experienced midwife has also gotten easier.
Certainly there are many that would question why in the world you'd choose to have a child in your home. It doesn't take much searching to find passionate advocates for both hospital births and home births and both sides have a variety of statistics that they use to support their beliefs (see here and here for against home births and here and here for pro home births). For several generations now we have been trained to believe that hospitals are the only place to have a baby safely. There is a system that has been set up that we are to follow, starting with the beginning of pregnancy and one that continues forward through the life of a child. While I am not here to tell you that no one should have a hospital birth, that certainly isn't true in my opinion, I do think that home births should be considered as an option. Every woman should consider all of her options and educated herself to make the best decision for her baby and her. We were designed to have babies and have been doing so since humans first came into existence. Some people embrace the idea that our bodies can give birth without a lot of assistance and others feel lead to have as much help surrounding the birth as possible. Are either wrong? No. For me, the issue comes more about the freedom to decide what is best for my baby's and my body. Either route someone chooses to go, there are going to be not so perfect outcomes and even deaths. What would truly be fantastic is if the two styles of giving birth could more greatly overlap giving women a far greater advantage to delivering a healthy baby without the use of drugs or other unnecessary procedures.
When I first started looking into home births it was overwhelming to figure out how the whole process worked. If you follow the standard protocol, things are fairly simple and there doesn't need to be a lot of decision making. You find a doctor that is in your insurance plan and then follow what they tell you to do. Home births fall into a category of their own and depending on what state you live in, the laws that govern midwives and the freedom to have a birth at home varies.
