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Homebirth Help

A Certified Doula Answers Common Questions on Homebirth

By Kelly Camden, Certified Doula

Considering a homebirth? If so, you probably want to know details about the safety of homebirth and to learn what the home environment has to offer that a hospital does not. Whether you feel immediately excited about the idea or need some time to think it over, you and your partner will want to become informed about how and why it works so well.

Expectant parents who are interested in birthing at home commonly ask the following questions:

Giving birth at home offers many things that a hospital cannot provide, such as privacy, the comfort of your own home and bedroom, the opportunity to sleep in your own bed and to snuggle with your partner. Mothers experience support for natural birth and true freedom of movement for laboring and birthing in the positions that they choose.

When preparing for homebirths, the midwife gets to know each family very well, as she tends to spend an hour on each prenatal visit. She will care for you during labor, often with the help of an assistant. This is very different from hospitals, where many staff members are in and out of the room. Overall, mothers who give birth at home enjoy the experience, with "over 97 percent reporting that they were extremely or very satisfied," according to a homebirth study that appeared in the journal British American Journal (June, 2005).

The following statistics illustrate the success of homebirth. These numbers were compiled from a study of the North American Registry of Midwives and published in the British Medical Journal, June 2005.

• Studies on homebirth show that "Compared with the relatively low risk hospital group, intended homebirths were associated with lower rates of electronic fetal monitoring (9.6 percent versus 84.3 percent), episiotomy (2.1 percent versus 33.0 percent), [Cesarean] section (3.7 percent versus 19.0 percent) and vacuum extraction (0.6 percent versus 5.5 percent)."

Want to see more?

• The Homebirth Option: Why Are More and More Women Choosing a Homebirth?
• The Home Team: Where Do You Start When Drafting Your Homebirth Delivery Team?
• The Homebirth Hype: Everything You Need to Know About Delivering at Home
• Check out our Article Library.
• Talk about it!