Store10 Homebirth Facts No One’s Telling You
August 25, 2008
(Note to Free Thinkers: Please don’t make your birth decisions based on statistics alone. Numbers, statistics and studies can be skewed to support either side of most arguments. That’s why you’ll find tons of folks bantering back and forth… quoting study after study after study. Your birth choices are not about “studies.” They are about you. About your life, your baby and your choice. Studies support your choice. They don’t have the power to make your choice.)
If you’re newly pregnant, chances are you have never heard the truth about why homebirth is a safer choice for low-risk pregnancies. And if you’re not newly pregnant, it is never to late to consider your options and give birth to your baby at home.
“The first intervention in natural childbirth is the one that a healthy woman does herself when she walks out the front door of her own home in labour.”
— Michael Rosenthal, OB/GYN (from Midwifery Today E-news 7:24)
1. In studies comparing home vs. hospital births, homebirths supervised by a “trained attendant” indicate fewer deaths, injuries and infections. Respiratory distress in newborns was 17 times higher in the hospital than at home. (1)
2. The US has the highest obstetrical intervention rates of any country. (1) The US is currently ranked 28th for infant mortality (that means 27 other countries have a better rate of infant survival than we do). (5, 33)
3. The superior outcomes seen in homebirths are not because the women are at lower risk or in any way special or different from women planning hospital births. (2)
4. You are very likely to have a c-section if you chose a hospital birth. The WHO concluded that there is no reason for any region of the world to have a cesarean rate of more than 10-15%. As of 2004, the US has a 29.1% c-section rate. This rate is up from 27.6% in 2003. (2, 20) (3) C-section infants also are four times more likely to die than those born vaginally. (5, 31)
5. The newest study, done in 2005 and published in the British Medical Journal showed homebirth with a CPM (Certified Professional Midwife) to be as safe as hospital birth. The rates of medical intervention at home were lower, and the study showed a high satisfaction rate for mothers. (4)
6. The vast majority of woman are 2 to 6 more times likely to die if their babies are delivered in the hospital. (5, 25)
7. If your baby is born at home with a midwife, instead of in a hospital with an OB, he is six times more likely to survive his first year. (5, 29)
8. The longer your second stage of labor, the more likely you are in to receive a c-section when at the hospital. At home, there will likely be no time limit on your pushing stage unless there is a real problem. (5, 46)
9. When your birth is attended by a midwife, your chances of hemorrhaging and/or continuing to hemorrhage are significantly reduced. (5, 58)
10. A study published in the November 2003 of The Lancet found that c-sections double the rate of stillbirth before labor begins, in women who have had a previous c-section (and most likely a hospital birth). (5, 105)
Sources:
1. From Is Homebirth for you? 6 Myths about Childbirth Exposed
http://www.gentlebirth.org/format/myths.html
2. Goer, Henci. The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth.
3. ICAN (International Cesarean Awareness Network)
http://www.ican-online.org/
4. http://www.mana.org/CPM2000.html
5. Doubleday, Jock. Spontaneous Creation: 101 Reasons Not to Have Your Baby In the Hospital (e-book available at http://spontaneouscreation.org)
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Loading ...Posted by Maryn Leister · Filed Under Homebirth
About the Author
Maryn LeisterMaryn Leister is a "midwife-to-be" and the founder of Indie Birth. She's a homebirth mom and is most passionate about educating, supporting and loving pregnant women and their babies.
I am writing about natural childbirth on my blog I LOVE the note to free thinkers you put at the beginning of this post. I will be quoting and linking to you if you don’t mind.
thanks, but i choose hospital and c-section…. either that or bleed out and lose myself and my 2 children
I admit I didn’t have homebirths and I can definitely attest to the fact that hospital births increase your chances of intervention. Homebirth is a great choice and it would be nice to see people open up to it. Take care!
junebug,
No one is advocating that homebirth is the perfect solution for every situation, obviously people with risk factors should be seeking hospital births. However many women go to a hospital without being critical assuming its “the best” because doctors are there. Unfortunately there are many in the medical community who treat birth as a problem that needs to be solved as quickly as possible rather than considering what is in the best interest of their patients.
I was born at home almost 30 years ago and now I will be giving birth at home as well. My Mother was in labor with me for over 24 hours and at one point stopped altogether, but since she was at home there were no interventions to “speed things up” and so I was born gently and in the pressance of loving people. When I was born I didn’t even cry and lay peacefully on my Mother’s breast in my first moments of life. I want to give my son the same gift of peace and love and I am very excited to find so much information and support out there for independantly thinking women.
Your claims are so ridiculous and really incorrect. There are plenty of hospital facilities that are safe, and peaceful. I think your hospital stats are coming from homebirths gone wrong. I live in a community that favors homebirth and I know a handful of these that have gone bad, and had to be rushed to the hospital and emergency c-section to stillborn b/c that mother chose to try it at home and had she had medical intervention earlier that baby would have survived. C-sections are very safe, emergency ones after things gone badly do not always have the best outcomes. To show the other side, interview women that have lost babies form their selfish desire to homebirth, babies that have been permantley damaged b/c medical intervention was not received fast enough and those that chose to have c-sections b/c the risk is very low with a planned c-section. Put this in your story as well, because your point of view seems narrow. Open your mind to options and the safety of those babies that have lost their lives from homebirth. It is far too many in our community.
Hi Sue,
Thanks for your comment. We’re not really interested in debating or arguing, there are plenty of other websites for that.
Our focus is simply to support moms who want to have a homebirth.
Sue, as the homebirthing mother of three children, one of whom was stillborn (during a totally healthy pregnancy, without cause, and weeks before I went into labor, so it had nothing to do with where I planned to birth), I can say that stillbirth, by definition, is something that happens in utero, usually without any warning and mostly without any known cause. (The majority of stillbirths for which they can find a cause are caused by chromosomal abnormalities–i.e., babies who were not meant to survive–but in most cases, even with an autopsy, science does not know why stillborns die.) Stillborns cannot be saved by hospitals or c-sections–they die before labor begins.
This is not to say babies do not die as a result of labor, or because of missed problems. Problems are missed, and labors go wrong, and babies die in all kinds of birth settings. If you want to look up the data, you will see that for low-risk women (estimated to be between 80-90% of American women), homebirth is as safe as hospital birth: that’s what the studies have proven. Homebirth is not for everyone, but for the women who choose it and qualify for it, the outcomes are as good as they are for women who choose hospital birth.
What has also been scientifically proven is that c-sections are not always safe, and they always come with risks NOT associated with vaginal delivery but with surgery, which makes sense, since a c-section is major surgery. It’s also been shown that once a country’s c-section rate goes over 15% (America’s is currently double that), that MORE women and babies are injured and/or die during labor than if the c-section rates stay below 15%.
Hospitals have their risks, and homes have their risks. Birth is never without risk, and not all babies can be “saved” by medicine, nor can all births be successful at home. But the place we are in America right now–with an incredibly high c-section rate, worse outcomes than any other industrialized nation, and women being given high-risk drugs and surgery instead of undisturbed, peaceful, well-supported birth–is not acceptable. There are lots of great books on this topic, and the medical research has been done. I urge you to research further.