Jennifer Winther always wanted to give birth at home but “never had the courage to plan it.” So she delivered her first child at her local hospital, believing that it was the responsible thing to do for her and her baby’s safety. When she was pregnant with her second child, she planned to repeat her first birthing experience at the same hospital, even though she had lingering dreams of a relaxing labor at home. Sometimes you have to watch what you wish for.
“My second was born at home, my husband attending, because the labor was so fast! ... I was literally in the bathroom and started pushing while he was getting our two-year-old in the car. I started screaming, and when he came in, he said he saw the head crowning. It happened so fast ... so I guess I got my wish!” Winther exclaimed.
Well, perhaps she did, but had she been able to plan a home birth with a midwife to support her and her husband, the delivery would have been calmer and wouldn’t have required her to go to the emergency room afterward. The moral of this story, however, is that both Mom and Baby were just fine.
While many debate the safety of delivering anywhere other than a hospital, a large study published in the British Medical Journal in 2005 (“Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives: large prospective study in North America,” by Kenneth C. Johnson and Betty-Anne Daviss) determined that home births monitored by certified midwives were safe for low-risk women. This survey of more than 5,400 women whose deliveries in 2000 were all attended by certified professional midwives didn’t report one death; rather, researchers noted that there was less need for interventions at home than was typically found at hospitals. (Interventions include the need for induction drugs like pitocin, vacuum extraction, or cesarean sections.)
This is all good news. But how can women considering having their baby at home determine if they fall into the “low-risk” category? For more information, I turned to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (ACOG). ACOG is sternly against home births, citing that complications “can arise with little or no warning even among women with low-risk pregnancies.”
