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Some women are just "made" for giving birth...they can pop them out--no problem! I wouldn't have wanted to do that...my 1st child needed to be turned, had the cord wrapped around his neck...it was an ordeal! (He was fine, however!) I wouldn't have wanted that to happen at home!
My 2nd child fairly flew out of me...I could have easily done that with little help....you just never know!
My brother and SIL delivered their last (third) child at home just 2 months ago. My brother said it was the most natural and beautiful thing he's ever witnessed. My SIL was having contractions for several days, but didn't need to push and wasn't really in a lot of pain. The night came when things got a little more intense, so they put the older two kids to bed and calmly waited for her body to do its work. When she felt like she needed to push, she did. It was painful, but the calm atmosphere is what made things go so smoothly. My brother didn't do much work, but was there to support and comfort her. After a few pushes, their new baby was out and laying on mom's chest. They left the umbilical cord attached for about 45 minutes and within minutes of the baby coming out she was making sucking movements. She ate right off the bat and my brother clamped the cord and cut it. Eventually they realized they didn't even know what they had had, so they checked and it was a girl! Alice Marie (They're Twilight fans--ha!)
I don't have any kids of my own yet, but I would definitely consider a home birth. It makes sense. Our bodies are perfectly built to do things on their own, and it's much less stressful and much more natural than having a doctor scream at you to push when you don't need to or having them use suction to pull the baby out. It was amazing to hear the story of my new niece. I was so proud of my brother and SIL
Although it was in a hospital, my D-I-L had her 1st child in about 4 hrs. The second was about 4 hrs but the 3rd was more like 8 hrs b/c he was bigger. I knew a woman who had her 1st child in about 2 hrs, me, it took more like 15 hrs. Everyone is different! I think in the "olden days" I would have died in childbirth at home.
We planned on having our first child at home (Washington state) with the aid of a midwifery team, but sadly that was not to be. I labored at home for 32 hours before the midwives convinced me it was futile. I was driven to the hospital, where I labored another 4 hrs. They then gave me a strong epidural in preparation for a C-section, which I refused...you see, they finally had turned me on my side to give the injection, and that's all the baby needed to descend. Silly physicians.
Six years later, I had my daughter with the aid of midwives, but this time in a birthing center connected to a hospital. All the calm of a home birth, but with the added benefit of being close to help should something have gone amiss.
No drugs, no intervention, and I was able to have several members of my family there with me (mother, sister, and cousin). If my insurance would have covered the birth at home, I would have opted for that in a heartbeat.
Definitely find out if the state in which you live supports midwives and home birthing. Indiana, where I now live, does not.
I had a very easy delivery with my second child, and planned a homebirth for our third, but I ended up having a miscarriage. If we have another baby, it will be a homebirth.
Remember that a lot of the time, when you are in the hospital, you are tethered to an IV line and pretty much made to stay in bed on your back, especially if you have pitocin and an epidural. These interventions (along with not feeling "at home" and comfortable in the hospital) can lead to a longer labor, more pain, sub-optimal positioning (for you and the baby), and unnecessary episiotomies, c-sections, and other interventions. When you are at home (or in a birthing center), you are walking around at will, able to eat and drink, able to squat and get on your hands and knees, etc, so the baby descends more easily. You also have the benefit of feeling comfortable with your surroundings.
Obviously if there were a problem or a risk factor, homebirth would not be a safe option... but for many women and babies, it is just as safe as or even safer than a hospital birth (safer because dangerous interventions do not happen unnecessarily).
If you are interested in learning more about homebirth there is a documentary that is worth watching, "The Business of Being Born".
That documentary was a little ridiculous. It was VERY biased and they basically set out to make hospitals and doctors look like the devil. I had to laugh at some of that. It was a little ludicrous to be honest.
That documentary was a little ridiculous. It was VERY biased and they basically set out to make hospitals and doctors look like the devil. I had to laugh at some of that. It was a little ludicrous to be honest.
What issues did you have with the documentary points?
While obstetricians have made great strides in dealing with many complicated and high-risk cases, the majority of births simply don't require anything more than a "catcher".
I have worked with obstetrical records for over a decade, and I do have to say that there is more chance of a delivery going badly (cesarean, 2nd/3rd-degree laceration) when physicians intervene unnecessarily. Oftentimes midwives are faced with the same issues in labors (arrest of descent, fetal heart rate abnormality, 'lengthy' labor), yet substantially fewer of those result in cesarean or bad lacerations.
Once a physician gets impatient with a woman who wants an unmedicated birth and gives her Pitocin (because a 'long labor' to a physician is quite different to a midwife), it's usually downhill from there. The Pitocin causes the contractions to be more painful, so then they give an epidural. The epidural slows down the labor even more, sometimes causes the fetal heartrate to drop, and then it's c-section time.
Not all interventions are wrong...but many either don't need to be done so early in labor, or the physicians should learn some patience and utilize some nonmedical interventions first.
If a woman with a low-risk pregnancy were to have the same birth at a hospital and at home, she would encounter two radically different attitudes and approaches to her condition: an illness/emergency to be 'treated' at the hospital, and a natural process to be supported at home.
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