Do you want to give birth at home? Before embarking on this beautiful adventure, take a look at the important elements to be taken into account: choice of midwife, cost, risks, advantages, delivery schedule, etc. Midwives give you the keys to make your choice in complete serenity!
Home birth still concerns a small percentage of women. Most countries report less than 1 % of births took place at home, in the Netherlands, where home birth is a common practice, about 16 % of all births were made at home with a midwife. So, in general 1% to 2% of future mothers opt for a home birth worldwide. For the US this percentage is approximately 1.7 % in 2018. While perinatal professionals focus on the risks associated with home birth and generally recommend a traditional birth at hospitals, advocates of homebirth see it as the freedom to choose and fully participate in the childbirth process. To make a better and informed choice for giving birth at home, we offer you all the essential information you need to know.
What is Homebirth?
Home birth is a birth that takes place in the home of a pregnant woman. While some women are reassured by the medicalization that surrounds their childbirth in a hospital, others will prefer a childbirth performed in a familiar place, surrounded by known and loved people.
A small number of women choose to give birth at home with a midwife. How is a home birth performed? Is it more risky than giving birth in a hospital? Here is what you need to know about homebirth.
There are several conditions that must be met for a safe and trouble free home birth:
- The mother must have had a good state of health before the pregnancy (no diabetes or hypertension for example).
- The pregnancy should be going perfectly well: no gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, bleeding…
- Previous pregnancies and deliveries must be well conducted
- Pregnancy is a singleton pregnancy (a single baby).
- The home birth must take place between 37 and 42 weeks.
Note: any pathology during pregnancy must result in a consultation or transfer to another professional. If gestational diabetes or high blood pressure is diagnosed, medical follow-up is required. Then the home birth plan must be abandoned.
The mother who wishes to give birth at home is warned of the risks involved and informed of the possible need for a transfer to a hospital if there are complications during the birth.
8 reasons to choose home birth
Home birth is great for your baby, but why? Let’s look at 8 reasons to choose it instead of birth in a hospital!
- The hospital is for the sick. Why would a perfectly healthy woman have to go there to give birth? Why expose your fragile little baby to all these hospital germs?
- It is a gentle birth experience for mother and baby, in a familiar and quiet environment.
- Your baby was conceived at home, why not give birth to it at home too?
- Most women feel that birth is a private and intimate affair that should not take place within a group of strangers. Home birth guarantees your modesty.
- Your desires are more likely to be heard and respected at home with a qualified midwife who is not dictated by hospital protocol.
- Midwives want to get to know you, this is very important. They spend time with you at every prenatal appointment, listen to your concerns, remain attentive to your questions and provide you with all the information you need.
- They believe in a woman’s ability to give birth to her child naturally. Instead of pushing you to take medication, or intervene with methods to speed up the process, they will give you natural ways to take care of yourself and manage the intensity of the work.
- Home birth is cheaper!
10 Common Misconceptions about Home Birth
If you’re considering a home birth, you’ve probably noticed that everyone seems to have an opinion on the subject. As soon as you mention the word “home birth”, people look at you with a frightened look and they allow themselves to challenge your decision by pointing out that the hospital is much safer than your home. Unfortunately due to lack of information, home birth is victim of many misconceptions…
Below we give you several widely spread misconceptions and facts about home birth:
# 1. It’s not for women expecting their first baby.
False. Many women actually choose to give birth to their first child at home. A recent study found that well over one-quarter of women who gave birth at home had their first baby. While mothers waiting for a second child have the added benefit of knowing what the childbirth is like, this does not mean that mothers waiting for their first baby cannot benefit from the wonderful experience of home birth. The home birth is a safe option for any woman with a low-risk pregnancy, regardless of whether they are expecting their first child or not.
#2 The home birth is not safe
False. A recent Australian study (by the University of the Sydney Technology Centre for midwives) analyzed data from 1,807 planned home deliveries over a five-year period. The information was compared with hospital birth statistics, and it was found that home birth reduced the risk of neonatal and early stillbirth deaths. The study also found that giving birth at home increases the odds of having a normal vaginal birth and was associated with a reduced risk of a third-degree tear. The number analyzed is not very high and limits the conclusions, but it is really reassuring to see the results of the research and just confirms that home birth is not necessarily considered more risky than giving birth at a hospital.
A previous study with much larger data produced similar results. A Dutch study of more than 500,000 women concluded that home birth is safe for women with low-risk pregnancies.
“No significant differences were found between home and hospital deliveries, intrapartum death and neonatal deaths during the first 24 hours, intrapartum death and neonatal deaths up to 7 days, admission to the neonatal intensive care unit.”
# 3: You cannot have a home birth if you have any health condition
There may be several reasons why women would think they are not able to give birth at home. Such reasons are, having a bad experience with caesarean section, high blood pressure and hemorrhage are examples of previous situations that could make women hesitant and think that home birth is not a good choice for them. Some state laws concerning past C-sections will not allow for homebirth.
Actually, in modern days homebirth is even more possible, and an increasing number of women choose to do so. You will need to find a midwife who is supportive of your decision, but make sure to listen to your midwife if she recommend you should instead go see an obstetrician or specialist. If complications occur during your pregnancy, it is important to be open for care in a hospital setting.
# 4: The hospital is the best place to give birth to your baby
The hospital is a common place of birth for most deliveries, but this does not mean that it is the only suitable place for giving birth. It’s important that you feel comfortable and have a safe, calm setting during your labour. If you think the hospital environment won’t allow you to feel this way, then it may not be the best place for you. The same applies to home births.
The assumption that births must be performed in a hospital is probably due to the belief that generally a birth is risky and dangerous. There are risks of course, but these risks are minimal for a pregnancy that is well planned and organized. Like any body function we are born with, for example, breathing or waste disposal. These are specific functions that have been designed to work for the survival of the species. Sometimes you need to see a doctor if a condition arises, or in case your health goes downhill. But his presence is not mandatory when things are normal.
# 5: There is no way to relieve your pain during home birth
False. Although it is true that mothers giving birth at home will not be able to receive epidural or other pain relief options that can only be achieved in a hospital setting, there are many other alternatives to relieve the pain during the home birth process. Actually, Midwifes know perfectly well natural and very effective ways to relieve contractions.
Choosing home birth does not mean that you will be forced to clench your teeth and bite a cushion to bear the pain. In many countries you can buy or rent Gas and air like Entonox (it’s something similar to laughing gas) to use at home, use TENS machines, hypnobirth, paracetamol, give birth in water or you can also be treated with homeopathy or breathing exercises.
# 6: Home birth? Isn’t that for the hippies?
It’s the first label we put on women who choose home birth. The home birth is the preferred choice of many expecting mothers and their families, regardless of whether they live in community, if they are university graduates, musicians business leaders or lawyers – even the someone who walks in front of you on the street may have chosen to have a home birth. The birth at home is an informed and thoughtful decision about the best place for their babies to be born.
# 7 In the old days there were high death rates during home birth
In the past centuries women gave birth at home or wherever possible, as there were no other options. After hospitals appeared as a new place to give birth, back then in the early days it was perceived as scary and unsafe birth method, rather than homebirth. In the old days the cause of deaths during birth were mainly due to bad understanding about proper nutrition and sanitation which very often caused fatal infections.
There was for example a disease called childbed fever (or Postpartum infection), which often occurred in hospitals too. Then there was also “The Doctor’s Plague” which was a common cause for deaths during the period between 1600’s and the 1800s. A lot of the childbed fever cases were actually caused by the doctors who were lacking sanitary knowledge and doctors believed ( believe it or not) that hand washing was not necessary.
Actually, a famous back then American obstetrician and teacher, Charles Meigs, was often quoted saying: “Doctors are gentlemen, and gentlemen’s hands are clean.”.
But things have changed a lot in modern days as we now have a better knowledge, understanding and technology to perform a child birth at hove without problems or high risk of complication. You only need to make sure you have planned, evaluated and organized your homebirth properly. While at the same time keeping a close communication with a good specialist, doctor or a midwife that will advise you and help you make a decision and later help you trough the childbirth process.
# 8 Not everyone is an expert at Homebirth
You may be receiving homebirth advice and recommendations from your mother in law, friends and even complete strangers on the street. You would think everyone is an expert on birth – even those who have never experienced it. If you want to get advice, you should speak to a real homebirth expert. There are many homebirth support groups and advisors across the country that offer the option to consult with women who had homebirths already, midwives and doulas(birth companions) for advice and information about having a safe and comfortable homebirth.
# 9 Homebirth could be Messy
It’s true that generally birth is quite messy. In the hospital there are qualified personnel to clean any mess, and it won’t be really the case when having birth at home. But don’t worry, you can have a homebirth without leaving a mess. When you decide where in your home you would like to give birth, your midwife will assist in the need to cover and protect the floor and furnishings from any mess that could be created during the birth. You can use old towels, sheets and coverings to protect your belongings.
It shouldn’t take long to properly prepare the room you have chosen on the special day. If you choose to give birth in a birthing pool, the mess will be contained and easy to dispose of. All you’ll really need is a few cover sheets to protect the floor and your sofa or bed depending on where you have chosen to lie after the birth. Make sure you have enough cloths, coverings and cleaning supplies though, so that cleaning up afterwards would be easy enough.
# 10 The hospital is cleaner than your home
Of course hospitals will have a better resources to clean the birthing place as they have large and dedicated staff for that purpose, and you probably don’t have access to a cleaning team. But being cleaner doesn’t necessarily make the hospital safer though. Your house could be made to be a really clean and safe environment for a child birth that is not worse than a hospital and actually in some cases could be the better option.
In hospitals you are often exposed to the germs from various other patients and possible viruses, while the germs present in your home are already well known to your immune system, so you have a bigger chance to have a safer birth at the environment of your own home.
From this we can safely conclude that giving birth at home greatly reduces the risk of any possible unknown infections for both baby and mother.