"what made you want a homebirth?" I'm stumped

[MellyMel]

A friend-of-a-friend emailed me the other day, and had heard that we are having a homebirth. She seemed very posiive about it, (yay) but asked why we chose that. I am at a total loss of a good response to give her. I mean to me its like why WOULDN'T you birth at home? you know? Lately I've been feeling less that apt in the brain department, and am chocking it up to being pregnant. Any suggestions of what I should say to her?? Thanks, Mel

[crsta33]

My birthcenter midwives asked me why I wanted to birth there when I transferred care to them during my first pregnancy. I was a little overwhelmed to be asked (I had this thought that if my answer wasn't good enough that they wouldn't want me as a client! :shy Really, they just wanted to know my motivation) I told them the biggest contributing factor for me was that I did not want to be separated from the baby after the birth. I wanted to hold her and I didn't want her taken off to the baby nursery without me.

I also wanted to avoid interventions...IV, AROM, EFM, epidural, urinary catheter, episiotomy...and I wanted to know all my caregivers up front. It's so weird to me that you see an OB your entire pregnancy, go into labor and maybe see him or her a few times during labor, but they may not show up at all until it's time to catch the baby. They are making the big bucks for doing very little. The nurses do more "work" and you've never even met them! I'm also quite apprehensive about hospital germs and not keen on being seperated from my firstborn for a couple of days to stay in a hospital when I'm not sick! It's much nicer to have your own food, your own bed, your own clothes, and to not be woken at every shift change. I'd feel really trapped in the hospital.

We are homebirthing this time and the reasons we've decided to do that are because 3 hours is a little bit of a long drive for a second labor (that's how far our birthcenter is from us), I don't particularly want to be in a car during labor. There are no other options around here. You'd have to fight tooth and nail just to have a natural birth, let alone avoid intervention and separation.

Besides all that, I'm just a little bit different. :nut

Christa

[alegna]

I believe that homebirth should be the standard of care for all normal births. Hospitals are for the sick and injured. A mother in labor and a newborn baby are neither.

-Angela

[Mackenzie]

:yeah:
Short and sweet, nothing else need be said :)

[LoveChild421]

Statistically homebirth is safer for low-risk women. When I decided on a homebirth it was largely about that- where do I have the lowest chance of being sectioned, getting an episiotomy, being given pitocin, etc. and obviously that is at home. Where would I have the best chance of having a healthy baby and being healthy myself? home.

Also, I had originally planned to birth at a natural birth friendly hospital that does water births but then everytime I made my "birth plan" I realized just how little power I would truly have there- I mean in my home I can tell anyone to get the %*$# out if I don't like their attitude or whatever and I know exactly who will be attending me- no chance of rude nurses or the midwife I was close with not being on call.

I felt like although I could fight for the birth I wanted in a hospital I simply shouldn't have to fight when I'm trying to give birth and get upset- at home I have total power and control over what happens to me and my baby. no "protocols and procedures." I didn't have to worry about "time tables" and the CNM getting an OB involved, my homebirth midwife is more of a partner in my care than a leader and director of it.

I agree with Angela- normal birth is a natural process that doesn't belong in a hospital- it isn't an illness or something that needs to be "treated".

[Ruthla]

Maybe ask her what made her want a hospital birth?

[mandib50]

-home feels safer to you
-means you can follow your body without having to please anyone but yourself
-you can get naked if you want and don't have to worry about anyone's reactions :wink
-you can sing your birthsong without getting reprimanded by staff
-don't have to fight NOT to have the interventions you don't want
-to avoid interventions that are unecessary
-birth is a normal event, not something that needs to occur in an isolated environment with strangers outside your comfort zone and outside of where your daily life takes place
-one of the most wonderful feelings is snuggling up with your newborn babe in your own bed surrounded by the people you love in your own home

hope that helps!
mandi

[ZeldasMom]

If she is someone who hasn't had a baby, I like Ina May's analogy. She says something like imagine taking the biggest poop of your life. Would you rather do it in a room with bright lights with a team of people standing around you, yelling at you how to do it? Or would you rather be in the privacy of your own bathroom with a door that you can close?

[wendy1221]

I just always say the hospital sucks and I would only go there for an emergency. Normal childbirth is not an emergency.

[kote80]

I felt like although I could fight for the birth I wanted in a hospital I simply shouldn't have to fight when I'm trying to give birth and get upset-".

That is how I feel too, why should anyone have to fight thur labor.

[2+twins]

So many good reasons here. For me it began b/c I saw what a homebirth prenatal appt. was like (for a friend of mine) and knew that when my time came I wanted that level of personalized attention. I couldn't imagine going through a more vulnerable and intimate moment of my life with the sterility of a hospital and their staff and a doc who has to look my name up in a chart each and every time.

[veggiekicks]

If she is someone who hasn't had a baby, I like Ina May's analogy. She says something like imagine taking the biggest poop of your life. Would you rather do it in a room with bright lights with a team of people standing around you, yelling at you how to do it? Or would you rather be in the privacy of your own bathroom with a door that you can close?

I just love Ina May's perspective!! ...and all the reasons listed above. For me, I just felt the most 'at home' with the idea of home birth.

[busybusymomma]

:yeah What everyone else said. Taking back control and keeping my parts from being manhandled again.

[applejuice]

Maybe ask her what made her want a hospital birth?
Excellent.

When in doubt, answer a question with a question...:thumb

[flapjack]

What Alegna said. That, and the fact that for me, rites of passage should be celebrated at home with the people who love us- birth, marriage, death.

[MamaChel]

My favorite responses have been "Why are you planning a hospital birth?" and from my DH, "Why would she go to the hospital, she's not sick?" with this wide eyed innocent look on his face.

Really, it's my choice on where I give birth and I do not want to surrender control of my body to someone who cannot even be bothered to take more than 5 minutes with me in the preceeding months. i had one hospital birth to appease the family and then I laid down the law. My birth, my body, my choice.

[guitarmama]

Considering that her initial response was positive, maybe you'll have a convert on your hands. :)

[kiwimutti]

I think i'm going to have to print out this thread...perfect! So true.

:soapbox For me, I dont like the idea of being INTERUPTED during labor/birth...it actually really scares me! I havent invited people to our births who I feel might be afraid or not fully understand what a normal functional labor and birth looks like. (I know I wouldnt have the energy to educate them, let alone run away from them if they actually thought they needed to physically interfare! :yikes: )

Its amazing and dangerous I feel, that DR's dont have to go as an observer to at least a dozen home births before they can attend or be the main care giver for birth at hospital...
DRs (in genral) have never actually experienced a birth start to finish that wasnt interupted... Their training setting is birth at its most dysfunctional out of characture....so to them thats what birth should look like.

Dr's are trained to interupt and then react to all the problems/disfunctions their interuptions caused... and then a woman feels like "thank god I was at hospital because my birth was complicated...'
(I dont think the Drs even realize that they caused those complications and that birth isnt nessarely complicated at all, or how very sensitive the process is...to interuptions...)

Midwives on the otherhand...Understand the nature of functional labor and birth. And can sense if a labor is truely becoming dysfunctional, because it stands out to them as unusual after attending so many healthy straight forward births and they also are more likely to head off an emergency by utilizing their experience and the wisdom that each birth is intirely unique and may require completely different support or guidence to unfold as it needs to, and they are trained to make the call on true emergencies and transport to hospital to make use of the ficilities...

...(which in my mind is the approperate use of a hospital and Im pleased we have DR's for those times, I think thats what they should stick to)

My midwife also says she gets seen as a priority if she transports because Drs know a midwife will not transport casually ... that it must be serious... homebirth transportations are actually usually faster to be helped than emergencies that arrise at the hospital... :LOL so there goes the "just in case" theory.

...thats my 2 cents.

[LoveChild421]

:clap kiwimutti! exactly how I feel.

[Aka mommy]

When asked this question by my mother i explained to her that i had a lot of healing to do from my DD's hossy birth and that I knew my body and my unborn child could orchestrate a birth without interference perfectly. I also reminded her how terrified i have been of hossies my whole life and why would i go somewhere for a sacred event if i was terrified of the place???

[camprunner]

I personally would just tell them that hospitals make me uncomfortable and that I don't want to be separated from dd that long. Also last time the hour long drive to the hospital was a bit rough on me. Those are my personal reasons.

*My birth was one of the rare hospital births that wasn't tragic but it didn't make me feel any more comfortable in a hospital.

[Sleepymama]

We also had a very traumatic 1st birth. When my MW asked why I wanted homebirth I thought for a minute, and simply said that I wanted a birth where I had the most safety and the most control, and HB would give me that.

BTW my mom doesn't know that we are planning HB yet...nor does anyone else in our families. My RL friends know and think it's "cool." :LOL

[ZeldasMom]

There's also the whole thing of at home you and the baby are only exposed to your own family's bacterial flora, to which you have become adapted. At the hospital the baby is exposed to a much more dangerous environment in this regard.

I also think of individualized, evidence-based midwifery provided on your own terms as the rolls royce of healthcare. OBs have a lot of other factors influencing their decision-making besides what may be best for an individual woman. Also, hospitals are bureaucractic institutions that do things in ways that enable them to manage care for large groups of people at a lower cost, rather than doing what may be best for individuals (e.g. with EFM a nurse can be out at the nursing situation and have an idea what's going on with several women/babies at once).

I am not normally a rolls royce kind of a person, but birth is important, so I think it's worth it.

[JanetF]

I like to ask women why they "chose" hospital given that most women are "choosing" without actually knowing their real options (and therefore not really choosing at all) and almost definitely without understanding how normal physiological birth works and how hospitals are directly set up in contradiction of this process.

I'd give her the latest study on hb that was published in the BMJ - not a very hippy journal LOL. It showed a 3.7% c-sec rate for all mamas, and a 1.3% c-sec rate for mamas who'd had previous vaginal births. Says almost all of the best reasons, I think! But just a run down on the interventions performed on socalled low risk women birthing in hospitals, the higher rates of DEATH in hospitals from all those interventions being performed routinely and maybe some info on how the rates of infection, PPD, PPH and every other nasty are always much higher. If you actually have all that info and you still choose to go to hospital, that's where I start wondering about what's really going on with you, yk? If only we could kick the fear factor for women, so many would make more nurturing choices and not head straight to the surgeons for "care". :(

PS. You could also tell her that not one reputable study in the world has ever shown hospitals to be safer but they usually show home to be safer. It's not coz it's home, it's coz it's the only place to get evidence based care. Oh sheesh I could rabbit for ages! Guess who runs a hb group?! ;)

[applejuice]

I believe that homebirth should be the standard of care for all normal births. Hospitals are for the sick and injured. A mother in labor and a newborn baby are neither.

-Angela

ITA, Alegna!!

In a perfect world, this would be true!

[applejuice]

... and the fact that for me, rites of passage should be celebrated at home with the people who love us- birth, marriage, death.

Dr. Mendelsohn used to make this analogy when talking about modern medicine as a religion and its tendency to separate families at these important parts of life.

Good post.

[weliveintheforest]

If someone asks why we are having a homebirth, we usually just say it's what is right for us, and that we are just more comfortable at home. Thats about all I say, sometimes I tell them that DH was born at home, and thats just what our family does. Noone has ever challenged us or anything, so I haven't had to say much more than that. Ever since I could imagine myself having babies, I have always imagined having them at home... it's just what seems right.
I love the "taking a poop" analogy, I'll have to share that ;)

[kiwimutti]

I also think of individualized, evidence-based midwifery provided on your own terms as the rolls royce of healthcare.


I am not normally a rolls royce kind of a person, but birth is important, so I think it's worth it.


EXACTLY!! :LOL I love explaining it like this too, it sad but I like that little dig that fights back a little of mainstream's arrogant/ignorant assumption that homebirth is somehow not "high performence" and hospitals are.


Hospitals are inaproperate places for birth... because they are not designed around an acurite understanding of birth.
Now im really wondering what the motivation was to start births happening in hospitals...? does anyone know a great source for learning about the history of medicalizing birth?...maybe thats what we all should be wondering...why on earth are births in the hands of hospitals???? now im stumped :LOL

[Persephone]

Considering that I hate hospitals and needles, I balk at the idea of ANYONE telling me when to push, I have learned that episiotomies are stupid and pointless 99% of the time, forceps and vaccuums make my head hurt, and riding in a car in labor sounds like the most unfun thing to do ever, it's only natural to want to stay at home where I'm warm and safe in familiar surroundings, and far away from the hospitals and their pointy things.

Seriously, I have been in the homebirth mindset for so long, that I"m always confused when people speak to me as if they assume I'm having a hospital birth. I have to mentally take a step back, and realize that MOST people give birth in a hospital, and then answer their question, usually with something like, "Oh, that's irrelevant. I'm having a homebirth."

[2+twins]

Now im really wondering what the motivation was to start births happening in hospitals...? does anyone know a great source for learning about the history of medicalizing birth?...maybe thats what we all should be wondering...why on earth are births in the hands of hospitals???? now im stumped :LOL

This is a topic that I'm hugely fascinated by. A couple good books to read would be Dr. Sears' Birth Book (there's a chapter in the beginning on this topic) and perhaps my favorite, a booklet called Witches, Midwifes, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0912670134/qid=1126027567/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-2230698-7148661?v=glance&s=books&n=507846).

[busybusymomma]

The first chapter of Having a Baby, Naturally by Peggy O'Mara covers some birth history. :thumb

[russianthistle]

I know how you feel...people wonder why I would choose a homebirth...I get strange looks and sighs. I do not let them bother me...many people don't know better...they haven't educated themselves enough.

I, too, feel like the switch to hospital birth over the years has been a switch not only unneeded and unnecessary but also unnerving and invasive. I have never been in the hospital in my entire life (with the exception of at birth), so I feel it is inappropriate for me to go to the hospital as if birthing is some emergency. Homebirth is truly what we should do if we are able. This trun to the western medicine hospital birth has created a monster out of birthing!!! I feel like hospitals are sterile, unfriendly places that encourage negativity and worry. Birthing is supposed to be a wonderful, beautiful experience.

Be empowered by your decision! If you feel that it is the right choice, it is!

Erin