Home births are a great option for women who want to give birth in the comfort of their home without or with minimal interruptions and interventions. The reason why many women do not choose this option is the safety concern. Research suggests that for first-time moms with non-complicated pregnancies home births with a midwife are as safe as hospital births. For multiparous women, home births are the safer option. For babies, a hospital birth is safer if it is the first birth of the mother, but for any consequential birth, there is no difference between home birth and hospital, though there is also a study from Canada who doesn’t see worse outcomes for the baby during the first birth.
Some of the advantages of home births are:
• Continuous care (the midwife comes to your home for prenatal visits, the birth, and postpartum visits)• One-on-one care (or sometimes even two-on-one).
• You can decide who is with you the whole time
• Lower chance to have interventions such as episiotomy, forceps, or ventose delivery
• Birthing pool available
• Free movement during labor and birthing in upright positions possible
• Fathers can stay with mom and baby during the whole birth and after the birth
• Fewer interruptions, no transfer to hospital (except when medically indicated or wanted by women)
Some disadvantages are:
• You have to pay privately
• No direct access to anesthetists and neonatologist
• Eventual transfer to hospital (almost 50% of first-time moms and 10% of second-and-more-time moms transfer to the hospital)
• No access to pain medications such as epidurals, opioids, laughing gas, etc.
• You have to organize a lot by yourself (e.g. pediatrician looking at baby after birth)
Here you can find a list of registered homebirth midwives: http://www.imahi.co.il/%d7%9e%d7%99%d7%99%d7%9c%d7%93%d7…/
More questions? Feel free to ask me: knowledgebasedbirth@gmail.com, 0584302519
