There can be no better place to welcome your baby than at home. Many mothers feel more comfortable and at ease in the privacy of their own home environment. Problems such as failure to progress can often be attributed to the multitude of interventions and fear associated with hospitals. While many physicians and hospital based nurse midwives are willing to accommodate their patients with birth wishes, hospital policy often limits the ability of the family to comfort and support their loved one. Homebirth is not a step backwards, it is a step away from the hospital.
The many benefits of homebirth begin prenatally. Hour-long appointments nurture the relationship between mother and midwife and reinforce the intimate nature of homebirth. Your family can participate in your appointments while becoming familiar with the birth team, and your midwife becomes familiar with your family.
Your birth plan will be taken seriously, respected and discussed openly. Laboring and birthing mothers have freedom at home. In hospital institutions birth is viewed as being an illness and there are rigorous time frames and procedures that you are subject to because it is the routine. At home birth is viewed as a normal process in all of its various forms allowing the laboring mother to have freedom. Freedom of who will be at the birth, what positions you will labor and birth in, whether or not you want to be in or out of the water. You are encouraged to eat and drink in labor to help with increasing energy needs. You and your partner are encouraged to catch your own baby.
After the birth, your baby 's umbilical cord will be cut only after it stops pulsating. Your baby stays with you and breastfeeding is encouraged and established. Only after the baby has nursed for a conciderable length of time, and you have had ample private time with your family is the newborn exam done. The exam is done right on your own bed, right by your side. Your birth team cleans up, and assists the family with a small meal. Then begins the series of postpartum visits the first of which is in 24-48 hrs.
IS HOMEBIRTH SAFE?
Midwifery approaches pregnancy and birth as a normal family event until proven otherwise. This model of care encourages family involvement and provides a safe environment for families to experience the social, emotional, and spiritual renewal inherent in birthing forth new life -- while attending to the possibility that a problem may arise that will require medical intervention or care in the acute care setting of the hospital.
If left alone 9 out of 10 women would be able to birth normally without the help of forceps, vacuum, or surgery. Yet in the United States, the cesarean rate is at an all time high of over 26%. The World Health Organization as well as the American Public Health Association both believe that midwifery care for all low-risk women would improve maternal and neonatal outcomes.
The U.S. ranks 28th in the world in neonatal and maternal mortality rates. That means that 26 other countries have a better understanding and means for keeping mother and baby safe during pregnancy, labor and delivery. Those 26 countries hold one thing in common..... over 70 % of pregnant women are cared for and attended by midwives.
Please check out the following one page handout, thanks.
www.cfmidwifery.org/pdf/nationalstatistics2002.pdf
Please educate yourself, read more on the safety of homebirth:
http://www.changesurfer.com/Hlth/homebirth.html
