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Home › Articles › Homebirth/Waterbirth › The Homebirth Hype

The Homebirth Hype

Everything You Need to Know About Delivering at Home

By Shel Franco

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Karen Hawkins of Bridgton, Maine spent her younger years raising all sorts of animals. Before she was old enough to have children of her own, she was watching those animals give birth, and the experience left a definite impression. "I always said I was going to have my babies birthed at home," Hawkins says. "I determined that if animals were able to have their many babies without assistance at all in most cases, there was no reason I should have to go to a hospital to have mine."

What is Homebirth?
The idea of birthing babies at home is not a new one. For centuries, birth took place in the familiar surroundings of home and at the hands of family members and neighbor women.

new mom While this is still the case in many areas of the world, the scientific community and social trends of the United States eventually determined that childbirth would be safer under the watchful eye of medical technology.

Current research is now testing this belief. "There are many good studies showing outcomes with homebirth comparable or better than hospital birth outcomes in similar populations," says Kate Brethauer, a homebirth midwife, in Oregon, Wis. As a result, there is a heightened awareness of homebirth as a viable alternative in childbirth.

Who's Doing It?
For many people, the idea of homebirth conjures up images of rural America and crude lifestyles. Today, this image couldn't be further from the truth. Homebirth clients come from all walks of life.

"I've seen tremendous variability in my homebirth clients," says Karen Kohls, a certified doula in Madison, Wis. "Young, old, knowing tons about birth, knowing nothing about birth, confident, frightened; you name it, I've seen it." she says. "[There are] middle class professionals who come to homebirth after learning about hospital birth, old hippie types that never even considered hospital birth, young folks that never considered hospital birth and lots of permanent student types, too."


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