I Want a Homebirth; My Husband Does Not. What Do I Do?
Lately, I have heard so many women say, “I really want a homebirth next time. But my husband doesn’t think it’s safe.” It’s obviously a common dilemma, even among the most naturally-minded of families. I understand why husbands feel this way: they are biologically wired to protect those they love. To these men, protecting their wife and unborn child means ensuring the child is born in a hospital.
The problem with this point of view is that it is factually erroneous. Study after study, in country after country - has established that homebirth, for a low-risk, healthy mother, is safe. Hospital birth, on the other hand, is full of dangers: births induced by Pitocin causing extraordinarily painful contractions; rampant and often unnecessary use of pain relieving drugs that cross the placenta to reach the baby; Caesarean sections performed on every third mother for convenience reasons like “failure to progress,” and the resulting complications of Caesarean birth like infection and interference with breastfeeding and mother/child bonding. In the landmark 2005 British Medical Journal study, “Outcomes of planned homebirths with certified professional midwives: large prospective study in North America,” the authors make it clear:
“Women who intended at the start of labour to have a home birth with a certified professional midwife had a low rate of intrapartum and neonatal mortality, similar to that in most studies of low risk hospital births in North America…..Medical intervention rates (including epidural (4.7%), episiotomy (2.1%), forceps (1.0%), vacuum extraction (0.6%), and caesarean section (3.7%)) were substantially lower than for low risk US women having hospital births.”
If you are serious about having a homebirth, then it is vital that your husband have these facts. Wage a full-assault war of information. Make sure he reads this article. Make sure he reads books like Ina May Gaskin’s “Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth,” or Henci Goer’s “A Thinking Woman’s Guide to Childbirth.” Ina May’s book, in particular, contains numerous stories of safe, empowering homebirths – even when there are complications like breach and hemorrhage. If he won’t read, then read to him. In the car, at dinner, in bed. Whenever you can corner him. Print out fact sheets and leave them in his briefcase. Send him emails at work with studies about the safety of homebirth, like the one I discuss above.
Also, I cannot stress this enough: take him with you to interview midwives. Make appointments with midwives in your community that have excellent reputations. (To find an excellent midwife in your area, I would highly recommend Mothering.com’s discussion boards, specifically the “Finding Your Tribe” area. Select your state and ask who people in your area would recommend. You might also try searching Yahoo groups for a Homebirth Support or Attachment Parenting group in your area. The ladies in these groups are always happy to share information about midwives with interested moms.) It might be helpful, in assuaging your husband’s concerns, to find a certified nurse midwife, if possible. Although licensed midwives (midwives who are not registered nurses) are absolutely as qualified, educated and informed as nurse-midwifes, your husband might find the nurse-midwives’ nursing education and/or hospital obstetrics ward experience appealing. Bringing your husband to the appointments will allow him to ask, and receive comprehensive answers to, all the “what if” questions that worry his soul. Moreover, he will get a sense of how professional and experienced midwives really are.
I would also encourage you to have a heart-to-heart discussion with him, at a quiet moment, about the birth experience you really want for yourself. And the birth experience that you don’t want. Tell him that you want to be in the comfort of your own surroundings, in your own clothes, with the only people around you those you love and hold dear – so that you can feel free to let your baby out of your body with ease. Tell him you don’t want unknown people interrupting your laboring, poking and prodding your girlie parts while you’re having contractions, just to see “how dilated you are.” Tell him you don’t want people pushing drugs, you don’t want to be hurried, you don’t want any outside pressures telling you when it is time for your baby to be born. Tell him you don’t want to be one of the one and three women who have c-sections.
And then, help him to see what it would be like to be born at home, versus a hospital, from your unborn child’s point of view. Ask him: if he could choose a birth experience for himself, would he want to come from that warm, wonderful, safe womb into:
a) a cold room with blaring lights and masked people grabbing at you, rubbing your skin, putting you on a cold hard table (to weigh you), blinding you with a goopy ointment, before finally returning you to your mother? Or:
b) the hands of your father, or a loving midwife – whose voice you recognize from months in utero – into a warm, dimly lit room (or better yet, into warm water) – with soft voices or silence – and being immediately placed on your mother’s chest to feel her beating heart?
Conscious parenting means that we must make choices for our child – including birth choices – that we would want for ourselves. Homebirth, by far, is the best and kindest way to enter into this world.
Finally, make sure YOU really are serious about having a homebirth. It seems to me that the women who concede to having a hospital birth still harbor doubts and fears of their own about a homebirth. In my experience, it is a rare woman that will allow her husband to overrule a decision she’s set her mind to – particularly when that decision involves her own body. So – shine a flashlight into your soul. Are you afraid of homebirth? If so, you must release these fears to have the birth experience you want. How?
- Read! Absorb all the stories about successful, easy, happy homebirths that you can. In addition to the books I mentioned above, Ina May Gaskin’s “Spiritual Midwifery” contains many more amazing stories of homebirths at “The Farm.” There are many other books containing great homebirth stories, like Sherri Menelli’s “Journey into Motherhood: Inspirational Stories of Natural Birth.” You can also look on Mothering.com’s homebirth discussion boards, or ask the ladies in your local homebirth support or attachment parenting yahoo groups for their homebirth stories. Excellent stories abound (I have two of my own!) Put as much positive information into your head as you can to combat all the fear-based information that you’ve heard throughout your life about the “pain and terror” of birth. There are also books specifically dealing with fear and childbirth, like: Pam England and Rob Horowitz’ “Birthing From Within.”
- Find a midwife that you connect with, and discuss your fears with her. Homebirth midwives are typically holistically-minded, and will work through your fears with you throughout your pregnancy. My beloved midwife Davi, who delivered my second daughter Elea, spent many hours helping me deal with fears I had about having another post-partum hemorrhage (I had one after the birth of my first daughter, Brianna, which required a transport to the hospital). She assuaged my fears not only by talking me through them, but also by creating a clear game-plan for avoiding hemorrhage: during my pregnancy – nutrition, herbs and vitamins – and after Elea’s birth – breastfeeding, “holding” my uterus, homeopathic remedies, and ultimately, western medicines.
- Try a birth-hypnosis program like Hypnobabies. You can purchase the program through Ebay if need be. These programs are specifically geared towards helping moms release birth-related fears so that they can relax and enjoy their birth experience.
If you are absolutely clear that you want a homebirth and you let your husband know of your intent, and if you make sure he has the factual information he needs so as to help him release his fears – it is the rare man that will stand in your way. Congratulations on choosing a homebirth. You will be able to look back on your birth with fondness and joy. And your baby will have been blessed with the most loving, gentle way to enter into this world.