More New York Moms Choosing to Birth at Home

I wished there were a third category on this poll, which is how I would have preferred to answer, and which reflects more accurately how thoughtful families usually make their choices: Yes (birth at home), with proper support and as long as everything had been healthy during pregnancy and labor.

I have been witness to hundreds of births attended in the hospital, and almost a hundred at home. My observation is that some of the actual and perceived "safety" in any given birthplace has to do with the woman's state of mind - supported, trusting, and peaceful.

My preference is always to be in the safest place, too! For some women, the perfect birth is that relatively painfree epidural birth. I find there is no less beauty and wonder in a birth under these circumstances as the birthing woman beams (or sweats), greeting her miraculously-arrived baby. For others they find their perfect birth floating in a pool of warm water by the fireside. Ironically, BOTH are safe and both have risks - each of which is calculated and chosen by the woman and her family, as they should be.

I will admit I am biased now about the kind of birth I prefer and have skills in assisting - at my age and with my experience - but I have no judgment for women who are making careful choices for themselves, whatever they may be. Home birth isn't for everyone - most women don't even want to commit to an unmedicated birth, and that's each woman's wisdom to identify her own needs and follow her own instincts. There are often more challenges (having preferences that can be facilitated) in hospital settings. It's like the "industrial model" applied to birth, harder to individualize anything because it is all set up for maximum efficiency on the health care end, not really so much on the woman's end.

Women are wise and tend to make wise choices when it comes to their childbearing. Sometimes it's uncanny! For example, I recently had one young client who remained ambivalent about home birth throughout her second pregnancy, and ultimately chose to birth in a hospital. I did not know why, and neither did she. Low and behold she did end up with a minor complication (retained placenta without hemorrhge), which would have probably necessitated a postpartum hospital transfer if she had chosen to birth at home... it was almost as if she had a "sixth sense" that the hospital would be safer for her this time, and she followed her instincts. Her birth was magnificent - she knew what she wanted in labor and was well-prepared to achieve her goals, she arrived in strong active labor, all her choices were respected (with a great hospital midwife and staff), and the birth was all she had expected, even though in the hospital. Then she received excellent care from a skilled physician and nurses to complete her last stage of labor - she hardly noticed this (and stayed unmedicated throughout) as she was busy falling in love with her newborn.

This kind of late change-in-plans has happened in my practice several times - I don't always understand, and most times nothing ends up being wrong, but anymore I never question these women's wisdom.

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If I were to give birth again, I would once again do it in the hospital. It's not so much the safety aspect (although, with my premie twins, I was very glad to be in a hospital!), but I need pain relief. I suffer from chronic knee pain, and a side effect for me is that pain is amplified everywhere else. Stubbing my toe can bring tears to my eyes - and it's not because I'm a wuss. Breathing through the pain of childbirth won't cut it. With my boys, the epidural only half worked, and I spent a good deal of labor nearly unconscious with pain. I can't imagine how bad it would have been drug-free.

Homebirths would probably work for a majority of women, but for those of us who need the hospitals, we should be glad both options exist.

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'Home birth is a process that has been [...] "condemned"--by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists since 1975.'

Well, I'm hardly surprised! Sheila Kitzinger has reported - in a book published SINCE 1975 - that in one NY hospital, poor Latinas were abandoned to suffer without company or pain killers, until an "Angel of Mercy" showed up:
"Really HURTS, doesn't it? [...] Would you like for this never to happen again? [...] Just sign here..." WITHOUT the presence of the child's father or any other friend, and WITHOUT explaining that what the woman was signing was a consent form for a hysterectomy. It seems that this is one of the simpler surgical procedures, and that student doctors must have a certain number of hours in surgery to pass to the next stage of their studies...
I'm not saying that practice still goes on, but a homebirth midwife would NEVER pull a stunt like that.
And it's not the only shady stunt doctors pull.
But since the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has a vested interest in keeping CONTROL of birthing, they spread LIES about the dangers of home births.

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"The other concern, which is a lot bigger, is that of germs and cleanliness. I know people say a hospital is full of germs, but should you really be having a brand new baby in any place that isn't 100% germ free, antiseptic cleaned within an inch of its life?"

Your baby has lived in your womb, in your home, for 9 months. Via the placenta, s/he's ALREADY acclimatised/immune to the germs in your home. I certainly wouldn't recommend giving birth in someone ELSE' home (if your own is available). But EVEN LESS in a hospital with a complete cauldron of alien germs.

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Yes, having both options is good. If a woman wants to give birth at home, that's great -- unless she's in the apartment next door to me, at which point I might kill myself.

My pregnancy was perfectly healthy, and there's no history of particularly difficult labors in my family, so on the surface, I would seem to be a perfect candidate for home birth. But I am very glad that I had decided on a hospital birth ahead of time or I would have been sorely disappointed. My water broke without any sort of contractions starting, and indeed I didn't go into labor naturally, even after over a day of waiting. A lot went wrong in the hospital, but if I hadn't made that choice or had that option, my daughter probably would have died and I might have followed. The "surgical" option of forceps was the last-ditch effort that enabled us to avoid a c-section, but in retrospect, an earlier c-section would have been safer for my baby.

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