How can we advocate?

[Emilie]

How can we advocate for homebirth- in a way that helps to make birthing at home the norm and birthing in a hospital only when medically neccesary.

I think we are taking womens power away by making birth a medical event- instead of the MIRACLE that it is.
I think this is shown in ALL aspects of our society.

What steps can we take to see women head back towards this goal?

As a young woman I was SOO scared of birth- even knowing I would have an epidural- I was scared. I feel robbed that my first child was born in a hospital- and to only have had one baby at home.

[Snowdrift]

I talk about it a lot--to everyone who has no way of messing wiht my head about it. My mom doesn't know I'm planning a homebirth, but all my classmates who have asked about the pregnancy do. And they all know that i'm scared of going to the hospital rather than staying home, and why.

I'm also refusing to "just go to my GP" to get the documentation I need to various accomadations at school. My GP is not providing my maternity care; that is my midwife's job. I'm jumping through plenty of hoops to get the school to acknowledge that my midwife is qualified to say I'm pregnant, but it's worth it if it makes a bunch of deans and lawyers and law professors realize that midwives exist. It may help out future students and it may come up in other conversations they have, even if they are talking about "that freaksih student and her crazy requests."

It's all about awareness, imho.

Well, not all, but a large chunk of it.

[Emilie]

yes I did not talk about it much during pg- cause I did not want to argue about it and have people freaking on me and putting doubts in my head- but I feel better prepared for that now. Espeically since dd did have a cord- and some difficulty- like see- it is still GREAT! I am so proud of you for deciding to birth at home. Have you read Birthing From with in yet?
It is my fav- I always advise it!LOL!

[CrunchyKat]

Yes, that's a great book! I agree and would love to help advocate HB and WB. I always try to encourage my prego friends to look into a natural childbirth HB/WB with a MW. Some of my friends seem thankful for the suggestions and ideas, some don't respond, and some say "Nooo way, Hospital and epidural is the way for me". Either way, I respect them for their decision and I feel good for trying to spread the awareness. I would love to take part in anything I can to help woman take control of their own birth and to know that their ARE alternatives, and alternatives are O.K.! I believe that HB are safer and the mother is in charge of her own birthing experience, instead of some Dr. and a handful of Know-It-All nurses, which I think is the most important thing (IMO).

[Emilie]

yes- esactly. I think we are totally taking our POWER away by taking away our POWER to birth- in our way.....
I was a epidural all the way mom with ds. Thank goodness for MDC. I found another way here thru a friend I met here. It has changed my life. I see the world differently.
I feel that by putting male doctors in charge of our briths0 we are doing something terrible for humanity. i can not explain it with words. It is something I feel with my heart.

[sapphire_chan]

One of the major free email providers has an answers area they've just started up, in the pregnancy section one of the most frequently asked questions is "does labor hurt?" "Is it really that bad?" "I'm scared about labor, tell me if it hurts?" over and over again. So one of the small things I do is I go in and say that while it is different for every woman, women who have homebirths often end up looking forward to laboring again.

[CrunchyKat]

I don't want to tell women that it doesn't hurt, but with practicing Hypnosis, you can really block out a lot of the pain and focus on other things. Really! During my contractions I was visualizing a huge flower, a huge flower that was slowly starting to bloom and open up. I was telling myself that with every contraction, my baby was being hugged and slowly but efficiently manuvering herself down my birthing canal. I told myself that I enjoyed giving birth to my baby and feeling her come into the world. I also used "choice" words, like "I choose to feel relaxed and feel no pain, but pressure on my cervix". My MW also had me repeat that every contraction was good, so every time that I said "ohhh that one was bad, that one really sucked" she was like "that was a WONDERFUL, STRONG, and EFFICIENT contraction, bring me another". I just tried to focus on how I was bringing a life into this world and how to make it as easy on her (and me) as possible, rather than focusing on how bad it was hurting. In the end, I want to have another HB. It was worth it and the pain really wasn't THAT BAD. People crack it up to be worse than it really is. (IMO). And I don't know anyone who has had a HB and a Hospital birth and wants to go the hospital route again.

[renaissanceed]

As far as advocacy goes, if you are comfortable with your choice of HB, spread the news. I told everyone we were planning on HB when I was pregnant and I loved people's reactions. I had no problem discussing the benefits of HB and did not get at all put off by stories or comments. I guess I was very confident in the wisdom of our decision & enjoyed educating people (many of whom did not even know HB was apossibility in this day & age - sad).

Other ideas:

Encourage friends & coworkers to consider a MW &/or natural childbirth in a hospital if they are not comfy with homebirth.

Infiltrate the mainstream boards if you are planning a HB & let them know your plans! You may inspire someone,

Have your kiddos where their Born at Home clothes. I am making a dress for DD for the summer & can't wait to have her wear it at the Folk Festival.

Write to your local/provincial/state/federal health authority to let them know the importance of midwifery care & HB.

Make sure your birth announcements mention that your DC was born at home if it works out for you!

Happy home birthin'!

[brandy111803]

Teach your children!!!! I know that this isn't an immediate shift but I have hope that each homeborn, gentle birthed baby will grow up to have their own beautiful, gentle births. I get very frustrated talking to mainstream parents on this subject (not even homebirth per se but how to make a hospital as gentle as is possible for the *newborn*) bc ppl just don't get it.

It is such a shame and is so sad to me that it takes a lot of us having a baby, or 2 or 10 to get this and that's just those of us that are open to seeing the possibilities of what a gentle, homebirth can do for our children, ourselves and our family as a unit.

There is another fabulous magazine out there from the UK called "The Mother" http://www.themothermagazine.co.uk/ It is very supportive of natural living and they have awesome articles about homebirth, lotus births, etc. It's very earthy and a great mag. My reason for telling you this is bc I think that it's UBER important to support mag's like The Mother and Mothering so that they can help reach more readers than we will as individuals. Write articles or your birth stories and send them to these mags, put them on message boards all over the place, etc. There is a new website called NaturalCaring.org (I think) and they are supportive of natural living, births, etc. and you can post your homebirth story on there as well.

I am finding that I get too frustrated by trying to tackle the big ole mainstream popluation myself so come up w/ some fun ways that you *enjoy* spreading *your* word about gentle, natural birthing. It will take a while to swing the pendulum but it definately starts w/ those of us willing to do set it in motion!

I'm glad that there are others out there unafraid to be the ones to give it it's initial push!