Why Homebirth?

Written by Laura Schuerwegen

A while back, I read this post by Lindsey Beyerstein on Majikthise. In the post, she wonders why anybody would want a homebirth. To be completely honest, a long time ago, in a dark era, before baby came, before I ever became a crunchy, natural birth-obsessed lactivist, there was a time I asked myself the same question. I had read stories of women birthing at home. I found it strange, and found it a very treehugging-people thing.

Becoming a mom changed my views in various departments and guess what, I too became the treehugging kind. But that's another topic altogether.

I had always wanted a natural birth, which to me was just an epidural-free hospital birth with a natural onset; and no lying down on my back. (Little did I know!), but the medical world decided differently for me. I was diagnosed with GD and went on insuline shots soon after. I was told I HAD to be induced (international protocol, yeah right) and spend my labouring attached to an IV and ended up pushing on my back. As a reward, my baby was taken from me to be put on the neonatal ward for the first 24 hours of her life.  Matters worsened even further as I had a serious bleeding little time after giving birth, so I was unable to get out of the bed to the NICU to see my baby.

In a way I am happy about my daughters birth, but if I could turn back time, I might have taken action to do it differently. So slowly, the idea of a homebirth sipped in.

Now why would I want a homebirth?

The first reason is to be in a familiar environment, that you can mold to your wants (dimmed light, some music maybe...) Not the cold and unfamiliar hospital setting.

Reason number two is to not to have to dump baby number one on the grandparents for 5 days. Frankly, I wouldn't know how that would work, because they are all still working, so we would have to get a sitter? Which would be difficult because we have no home of our own over there...

Number three is the greater liberty one has when birthing at home. You can eat and drink what you want (was I ever hungry with daughters birth!). You can move around the way you want. You can give birth in whatever position you like.

Four: There won't be a dozen people walking in and out the room. With dd, I suddenly looked up to find there were 6 or 7 people around me!

Five: If there is a way to escape the overmedicalisation of birth and the train of useless interventions, I'm there!

Six: All these things add up to the fact that you can only be more sereen, which can only make labour easier.

There are probably a dozen other reasons I could come up with why a homebirth would suit me better than a hospital birth, if I would think about it longer. But you get the picture. Now this doesn't mean I think everybody should have a homebirth, but I think it's nice to have a choice, and for it to be an informed one.

Some nice articles and blogposts along these lines:
Intuition in childbirth
On fasting during childbirth
Homebirth safety
Why get a midwife? "The midwife is (or should be) an expert in normal birth, while the obstetrician must be an expert in pathology."
Afterbirth high: why not to disturb mother and child in the hour following birth.
Management of third stage of labour

Laura Schuerwegen is a Belgian mother, wife and writer. She lives in Sub-Saharan Africa. You can find her thoughts on birth, parenting and life on Authentic Parenting.