Are Homebirths Safe?
Having your child in the home? Who does such things? Wasn’t that just back in the western days when doctor’s had to deliver babies at home out on the prairie?
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.
The practice of homebirths is usually called midwifery. 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 aside, lets look at why a lot of women are having babies at home rather than hospitals. What are the reasons why women are choosing homebirths?
First, with the midwife’s continued presence, the labor time can actually 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 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 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 because of the safety of the baby was in mind or the safety of the mother. When in reality the complication was created because the natural birth process wasn’t allowed to happen.
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.
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