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For a Natural Birth, There's No Place Like Home
by Mary Lou Singleton LM
The miracle of birth: it creates babies, changes women into
mothers, and turns individuals into families. Being born and,
in turn, giving birth are the most transformative and miraculous
events human beings experience. Yet in our society, birth is experienced
by most families as a technological and medical event, fraught
with the possibility of disaster. Currently, 25% of babies born
in the United States are surgically delivered from their mothers'
bodies. Another 50% are born to mothers who are numb from the
waist down and tangled in a web of tubes and wires. The rate of
Cesarean section in the United States has more than quadrupled
in the past 30 years, with no corresponding improvement in neonatal
outcomes. In the midst of all of this birthing technology, the
US maintains one of the highest rates of maternal and neonatal
mortality among all developed nations.
Every expectant family desires the safest possible passage through
birth for both mother and child. When it comes to birth, most
American families equate "safe" with the sterile, closely
monitored, technological environment of the hospital. These families
may be shocked to learn that giving birth in a "sterile"
medical environment designed to monitor and control the birth
process does not improve the quality or safety of birth. In fact,
study after study conducted on the issue has shown that for healthy
women with low- to moderate-risk pregnancies, giving birth in
a hospital is actually less safe than giving birth at home with
a trained midwife. One comparitive study matched over 1000 women
planning to birth at home with the same number of women planning
hospital births. The women were matched for age, number of previous
births, economic status, and medical risk factors. Women in the
homebirth group who transfered to the hospital due to complications
remained in the homebirth group for analysis. Though the two groups
had no statistical difference in maternal and neonatal mortality
rates, the results of the study showed that planned hospital birth
resulted in greater numbers of birth injuries, maternal and infant
infections, hemmorhages, and low apgar scores than planned, midwife-attended
homebirth. (1) Many other studies support these findings and no
study has ever proven hospital birth to be safer than planned,
midwife-attended homebirth. (2)
As they become aware of their choices, more and more families
are choosing to birth their children in the comfort of their own
homes with the help of midwives. In New Mexico families are fortunate
to have the option of hiring licensed midwives to provide comprehensive
maternity care and home birth services. Licensed midwives specialize
in caring for healthy women throughout their childbearing years.
The care provided by licensed midwives differs from that of nurse-midwives
in many important ways. Unlike nurse-midwives, who receive their
training and practice primarily in hospitals, licensed midwives
train and provide care in home and birth center settings. Constrained
by hospital and managed care policies, nurse-midwives typically
are unable to spend large amounts of time with individual clients
in prenatal visits. Large hospital practices leave clients unsure
of which particular nurse-midwife will attend their births. Licensed
midwives work in private practices and are able to dedicate great
amounts of time to their clients. They recognize that birth is
a profound rite of passage and needs to be treated as more than
just a medical event. Licensed midwives offer hour-long prenatal
visits, providing ample time to perform the necessary checks on
mom and baby's physical well-being, as well as to address the
emotional and spiritual needs of the mother. Families who hire
licensed midwives choose and know who will attend their births
as licensed midwives do not work in shifts and remain on call
for each of their individual clients.
In addition to personalized care, birthing at home offers many
distinct advantages over birthing in the hospital. In nature mammals
instinctively seek out quiet, dark, familiar places to give birth;
their labors stop if their space is disturbed. Humans also birth
best in privacy, and one's own home is the ideal place to create
such surroundings. Most women innately choose to move around during
labor, finding the most comfortable positions in which to give
birth. At a home birth, midwives encourage such position changes
and a woman's freedom of movement is limited only by the size
of her house and yard. Licensed midwives also offer their clients
the choices of laboring and birthing in water, delivering their
babies with their own hands, or having the father catch; none
of these options are routinely available at any Albuquerque hospital.
After birthing at home, mother and infant may bond without interruption.
A comprehensive newborn examination is done right on the family
bed next to the mother. Home birth also allows for greater sibling
involvement in the birth process. If the parents desire, older
children can be present at the births of their new siblings, an
option which is not routinely available at hospitals, especially
during the cold and flu season.
The familiar comfort of home makes it the safest birthplace for
healthy, low-risk women. In the safety of their own homes, women
are less likely to experience complications of labor, such as
hypertension and meconium staining, which may be brought on by
stress. The freedom to move about as desired decreases both length
of labor and the need for pain medications, therefore lowering
the risk of maternal exhaustion, fetal distress, and cesarean
section. Whereas a woman's home usually contains only microbes
to which she and her baby are immune due to to daily exposure,
the hospital is full of disease-causing microbes, many of which
are resistant to most antibiotics. In fact, any person being admitted
to an American hospital has a 4 to 10 per cent chance of acquiring
a hospital based infection.(3) Newborn babies are especially susceptible
to such infections due to their immature immune systems. Birth
is by nature unpredictable and in some instances families who
choose to birth at home may have to transfer to the hospital for
technological assistance. The small chance of such a transfer
being necessary should not deter women from planning to birth
at home.
Birth is a family event and, with very few exceptions, happens
most naturally and safely in the mother's home. Families who birth
at home with the help of midwives generally report far greater
satisfaction with the birth experience than those who have given
birth in hospitals. Women who birth at home and the midwives who
attend them understand that birth is as safe as life ever gets,
and that attempting to control birth actually causes more complications
than it prevents. Midwives maintain the safety and sanctity of
the natural birth process, mainly through the practice of non-intervention.
When excellent prenatal care has been given, addressing all aspects
of a woman's life and relationships, a mother is well-equipped
to birth her baby with minimal assistance. Midwives specialize
in normal birth, they are quick to recognize any deviation from
normal and to use the appropriate measures to help correct the
situation. Midwives and families who birth at home are not anti-hospital,
but feel that the hospital should only be accessed when truly
needed. Midwives trust in women's ability to give birth normally
and they help instill and reinforce this same trust in the families
they serve. Far from being a medical event which must be suffered
in order to receive a baby, a midwife-attended homebirth is a
joyful celebration of life and the family.
1.Mehl, Lewis, et al. "Outcomes of Elective Homebirths."
Journal of Reproductive Medicine. November, 1977: 281-290.
2.Olsen, Ole. "Meta-analysis of the Safety of Home Birth."
Birth. Volume 24, Issue 1, March 1997. 3.Garrett, Laurie. The
Coming Plague. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1994.
Thanks to babyuniverse.com
for this article
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