Having your child in the home? Who would even think of such a thing?  Didn’t that only happen back in the early days of our country when doctor’s had to go out to the prairie and deliver babies?

Not quite.  There are a growing number of women who have discovered the benefits of having your baby at home, or a homebirth as it is commonly called.

This practice of having your baby at home is called midwifery.  Although usually not nurses or doctors, the people who are in midwifery are professionally regulated.  I myself have seen the steady rise of homebirths through my practice as a San Diego certified midwife.

The people, generally women, who perform this line of work are called homebirth midwives.  Midwives is the term most people are familiar with and means a person who helps during childbirth by providing support of the labor and delivery.

Now why the midwife generally isn’t a doctor or nurse is because having your baby at home, or midwifery, is usually the belief that pregnancy and delivery are natural events.  This is in stark contrast with the medical model which relies on medicine to assist and improve the pregnancy and delivery.

With that aside, lets look at why a lot of women are having babies at home rather than hospitals.  What benefits are making women choose homebirths?

First, with the midwife’s continued presence, the labor time can actually be reduced.  Most women don’t realize that the use of pain medications although seemingly helpful in regards to pain, actually slows the labor down.  This really causes more pain and the labor actuallly lasts longer.

Second, midwifery techniques in reality reduce the need for forceps or other intrusive devices during delivery.  The process of allowing the birth and delivery to happen naturally is what reduces the need for those devices.

Third, the possiblity of c-section deliveries are actually reduced.  Most cesareans that happen in labor were because it was thought that a vaginal birth was not possible.  Either the safety of the mother was in mind or the safety of the baby.  Well in reality, complications were caused when the natural process was stopped and not allowed to continue.

These are just 3 of the benefits of having a natural birth at home.  There are a lot more benefits, but I am positive most women who are pregnant would say these are 3 huge benefits. 

So although, most might consider it strange to want to have a child at home, studies have shown that allowing the natural birth process to happen is safer for the mother and the baby.  With over 300 births attended as a homebirth midwife in San Diego, this has proven to be the case time and time again.