Benefits of Home Birth

"First and foremost, the birth of a baby is also the birth of a mother. Because she herself is being born as a mother, what is really needed is love, support and compassion for her and her journey, no matter what that journey looks like."

~website: Birthing from Within

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"...emotions play a huge role in the progress of labor, and fear and anxiety can stall labor. Goer argues that feeling helpless or threatened can also inhibit labor (204). And what kind of setting is more likely to induce anxiety and helplessness than a hospital?

...So hospital births have higher rates of unnecessary interventions. For this reason, then, some experts conclude that hospital births can actually be less safe for low-risk women.  The main problem, Goer explains, is “the injudicious use of drugs and procedures so typical in hospitals.” Furthermore, because one intervention tends to lead to another, it produces a ‘cascade effect’ (Goer 205). Electronic fetal monitoring, for example, keeps a woman on her back, which can slow down labor; this often leads to labor augmentation with oxytocin, which increases the risk of C-section. Often, the best medicine for a slow labor is patience."

~Website: Project M
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The Midwives Model of Care is based on the fact that pregnancy and birth are normal life processes:
  • Monitoring the physical, psychological, and social well-being of the mother throughout the childbearing cycle
  • Providing the mother with individualized education, counseling, and prenatal care, continuous hands-on assistance during labor and delivery, and postpartum support
  • Minimizing technological interventions
  • Identifying and referring women who require obstetrical attention
The application of this woman-centered model of care has been proven to reduce the incidence of birth injury, trauma, and cesarean section.

Copyright (c) 1996-2008, Midwifery Task Force, Inc., All Rights Reserved.
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"Several methodologically sound observational studies have compared the outcomes of planned home-births (irrespective of the eventual place of birth) with planned hospital-births for women with similar characteristics.  A meta-analysis of these studies showed no maternal mortality, and no statistically significant differences in perinatal mortality between the groups.  The number of births included in the studies was sufficiently large to rule out any mayor difference in perinatal mortality risk in either direction.  Significantly fewer medical interventions occurred in the home-birth groups (including women transferred to hospital), and there were significantly fewer low Apgar scores neonatal respiratory problems, and instance of birth trauma among the babies."

-A Guide to Effective Care in Pregnancy and Childbirth (Oxford University Press, 2000), Chapter 28
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