Baby Food Facts

Having the baby in your home? Who does such things? Wasn’t that just back in the western days when doctor’s had to deliver babies at home out on the prairie?

Not so.  There are a growing number of women who have discovered the benefits of having your baby at home, or a homebirth as it is commonly called.

This practice of having your baby at home is called midwifery.  Although usually not nurses or doctors, the people who are in midwifery are professionally regulated.  I myself have seen the steady rise of homebirths through my practice as a San Diego certified midwife.

The people, generally women, who perform this line of work are called homebirth midwives.  Midwives is the term most people are familiar with and means a person who helps during childbirth by providing support of the labor and delivery.

Now why a midwife is usually not a doctor or nurse is because the practice of having your baby at home, or midwifery is generally the belief that pregnancy and birth are natural normal events.  This is in stark contrast with the medical model which relies on medicine to assist and improve the pregnancy and delivery.

With that taken care of, lets examine why women are choosing to have babies at home.  What are the benefits that are causing women to have homebirths?

First off, with the continued presence of the midwife, the length of labor can be reduced.  Most women aren’t told that pain medications actually slows down the labor, even though it helps with the pain.  This really causes more pain and the labor actuallly lasts longer.

Second, the techniques of midwifery actually reduces the likelihood of the need for forceps or other operative devices during delivery.  The process of allowing the birth and delivery to happen naturally is what reduces the need for those devices.

Third, is it reduces the possibility of a cesarean delivery.  Most c-sections happen when during labor, it was thought that a natural birth process was not possible.  Either the safety of the mother was in mind or the safety of the baby.  When in reality the complication was created because the natural birth process wasn’t allowed to happen.

These are just 3 of the benefits of having a natural birth at home.  There are a lot more benefits, but I am positive most women who are pregnant would say these are 3 huge benefits. 

So although, most might consider it strange to want to have a child at home, studies have shown that allowing the natural birth process to happen is safer for the mother and the baby.  With over 300 births attended as a homebirth midwife in San Diego, this has proven to be the case time and time again.

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