Every month, I attend my local La Leche League meeting. I really enjoy meeting other breastfeeding mothers, always learn a little more about breastfeeding, and – I hope – get the opportunity to influence, oh so gently, expecting and new mothers to parent their children in a more conscious way.

This month, one expecting mama, a few days past her due date, told the story of how her obstetrician told her he wanted to induce her since she was a few days past due. She told her doctor that she, herself, had been two weeks late, as was her sibling, and that she didn’t want to be induced. She said that his very serious response was, “Who do you think is running this show, anyway?”

Maddening. Obstetrician-mentality like this is just maddening. But the story elucidates the reality that in the United States, obstetricians and hospitals ARE running the show. And the truth of the matter is – they do so because women let them.

I hear woman after woman at LLL meetings blithely accepting as normal this kind of treatment from their obstetricians. They accept impersonal prenatal care – 15 minute office visits after an hour long wait in the waiting room. They accept not knowing which doctor will be on call for the visit, or even which doctor will deliver their baby. They accept as normal being bullied by doctors, and nurses, and lactation consultants even – at the hospital when they deliver. They accept as normal that birth is wildly painful, and must be remedied by body-numbing drugs. They accept doctors’ determination that a caesarean section must be performed because their baby has not been born with a hospital-determined set amount of time or because an ultrasound indicates that their child is too big to deliver vaginally. They accept that pregnancy and birth is, on the whole, a medicalized, unpleasant experience that they must endure in order to have a baby.

They accept these indignities, and many many others, with little – if any - question. And to find solace, they share their pregnancy and birth war stories with other women who cluck, sympathetically, and then share their own.

Every time I hear one of these conversations, I wish I could say “It doesn’t have to be that way. You deserve better than cattle drive obstetrics. And so does your baby.”

But - it is rare that I can intervene in one of these “misery loves company” conversations because I don’t have a horror story to share. So I am telling you, dear reader, what I wish I could tell them. If you are contemplating becoming a parent or if you are already pregnant, you and your baby deserve better care than given by most obstetricians and hospitals. And you can get it.

How? Hire a midwife, and have your baby at home.

If this is a new concept to you, let me reassure you. Yes – people still do that! And Yes – homebirth is legal in many states (see note below).

The care provided by a good homebirth midwife is second to none. When you are in the care of a good midwife, you feel like you are the only pregnant woman in the world. You feel loved, and nurtured, and safe.

Most prenatal appointments with midwives last an hour or more. During this time, the midwife will talk with you about how you are feeling physically, mentally and emotionally, will ask you about and advise you about nutrition, and will perform the typical examination procedures with a loving, tender touch. She will weigh you, measure your belly, test your urine for glucose levels, and listen to the baby’s heartbeat with a Doppler or fetoscope. She will ask you if you want to have prenatal tests performed, such as blood testing for venereal diseases, ultrasounds, the AFP, glucose test, Group B strep. She will not force them on you, but will instead make her recommendations as to their import. And if you do not wish to have these tests, she will likely allow you to waive them.

Many homebirth midwives will come to your home for one or more visits close to the time of birth. My dearest midwife Davi, came to my home for the 36 week check up, the 30 hour labor and birth, and then the 2, 4 and 6 day postnatal visits. What doctor these days does that??

A good homebirth midwife will work with you holistically throughout your pregnancy to help ease your mind about the upcoming birth. She will discuss your fears with you to help you release them. She will direct you to read helpful and inspiring books. She will enroll you in a childbirth education course that will get you ready for your birth. She will tell you in no uncertain terms that YOU ARE MADE TO HAVE BABIES and that there is no reason to fear birth.

Giving birth at home – with a midwife - is the ultimate in luxury care. You are in your own safe haven – and the only people present are the ones you want to be there. You can move around as you please. You can wear what you want. You can labor sitting up, laying down, in the shower, the bath, on a birth ball, on all fours – however and wherever feels right to you. You can eat and drink what you want. You can birth by candlelight.

You are not – as you are in many hospitals – chained to a bed by a fetal monitor. You do not have unknown people performing needless pelvic examinations on you to determine how dilated you are. You do not have people looking at the clock to tell you that you must dilate by X centimeters by Y time or else they will “move things along” with Pitocin. With a homebirth, your baby is allowed to be born on his own schedule, in his own way. As it should be.

And when your baby emerges, he remains on your body, unaccosted by gloved medical hands. No one takes your baby away from you to clean him up, or vaccinate him, or put goop in his eyes. You, your partner and your baby – and any others you’ve chosen to be present – just bask in the quiet of your birth space.

In my experience, and in those of countless other families who have birthed their children at home, midwife assisted homebirth is by far a gentler, more loving way to have a baby. Very few women who have chosen homebirth would ever go back to a hospital.

If you are new to the idea of homebirth, you may be thinking – this sounds great! But there are two problems: 1) Birth is painful – how can I do it without painkilling drugs?? and 2) How can it be safe to have your baby at home? What if something happens??

Dear mama to be – let me tell you.

First of all – birth does NOT have to be painful. You can choose it to be otherwise. I believe that much of birth’s pain is in the mind. You can choose to look at birth as easy and painless, and convince yourself of that fact. I speak from experience. With both of my birth experiences, I set my intent that birth would be easy, quick and painless. And both births were. One way to help get yourself in this frame of mind is to read as many positive natural birth stories as you can – my favorite books for this are Ina May Gaskin’s Spiritual Midwifery and Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. There are also tons of great homebirth stories on the mothering.com homebirth forum. Oh, and I’ve posted one here! Birth hypnosis (e.g. Hypnobabies) can also be of great assistance.

Even if you cannot shift your perception of birth as a painful experience, with a homebirth – you simply don’t need drugs! The very nature of homebirth makes them unneeded. Being at home in a safe space with people you love encourages you to relax, which makes birth easier. With a homebirth, you can labor in a bath, birth pool or shower and in different positions (e.g. on all fours, sitting on a birth ball or toilet) – all of which bring natural pain relief. And, you have your midwife there as a personal birth coach – guiding you through the experience. When labor is the toughest – during transition – midwives will hold you and tell you You Can Do This!! – their love and support gets you through.

With regard to the safety of homebirth: for a healthy woman with a normal pregnancy, homebirth is as safe as or safer than hospital birth. A large scale study done in 2004 confirms this fact. A good homebirth midwife is trained and equipped to handle emergencies, including neonatal resuscitation, cord prolapse, post partum hemorrhage, and the like.

One of the things that makes midwifery care FAR safer that hospital care is the decreased risk of interventions. With a homebirth, you are not hooked up continuously to a fetal monitor (in a hospital setting, inaccurate readings by fetal monitors can lead to unnecessary cesarean sections); your labor is not hurried with Pitocin (Pitocin makes contractions unbearably and unnaturally painful which causes most women to seek refuge in pain relief drugs which carry with them another set of risks); and your risk of a caesarean section (after transport to the hospital) is reduced to a very small statistic.

Much has been written on all the things I’ve discussed. I urge you to read as much as you can and get informed. Decide what you really want for yourself – and your baby. In making the decision as to who will provide you prenatal care and where you will have your baby, ask yourself this:

When you are old, and thinking about your pregnancy and your child’s birth, what memory do you want have?

Make that memory happen by choosing a midwife and homebirth, if at all possible. You will be glad that you did.

 

NOTE: There are no US laws prohibiting birthing at home, but some states make it illegal for midwives to attend homebirths. Thus, parents in these states who wish to have homebirths must either find a midwife willing to contravene the law, or have the baby unassisted by a midwife. Many families safely and willingly go these routes. Parents in these states may also be able to locate a birthing center and have a certified nurse midwife attend the birth. For more information about the status of the law in your state, click here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 18th, 2007 at 10:48 pm and is filed under Homebirth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.