Considering a home birth? If so, you probably want to know details about the safety of home birth 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 home births, 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 home birth study that appeared in the journal British American Journal (June, 2005).

The following statistics illustrate the success of home birth. 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 home birth show that "Compared with the relatively low risk hospital group, intended home births 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)."
• The Cesarean rate for intended home births was 8.3 percent among primiparous women (first-time mothers) and 1.6 percent among multiparous women (those who have previously given birth).
• The study compared medical intervention rates for the planned home births with data from birth certificates for all 3,360,868 singleton, vertex (head-down) births at 37 weeks or more gestation in the United States in 2000, as reported by the National Center for Health Statistics. It was found that "655 (12.1 percent) women who intended to deliver at home when labor began were transferred to hospital. Medical intervention rates included epidural (4.7 percent), episiotomy (2.1 percent), forceps (1.0 percent), vacuum extraction (0.6 percent) and [Cesarean] section (3.7 percent); these rates were substantially lower than for low risk U.S. women having hospital births."
• "Planned home births with certified professional midwives in the United States had similar rates of intrapartum and neonatal mortality to those of low risk hospital births."
• "Medical intervention rates for planned home births were lower than for planned low risk hospital births," even when a transfer to the hospital occurred.

A good candidate for home birth is a woman who truly wants to give birth at home. Also, she must be considered "low-risk" by the medical establishment. Home birth midwives screen clients for continued health during pregnancy and may refer women to hospital providers if certain symptoms appear.

Home birth midwives are trained in emergency medical care of mothers and newborns. They carry blood pressure cuffs, stethoscopes, oxygen tanks, suction devices and medications to stop bleeding. Because they are providing care for one family at a time, they are almost continuously observing mother and baby.

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