Aromatherapy Haven

Having your baby at home? Who would even think of such a thing? Didn’t that just happen when there weren’t many hospitals and doctor’s had to go to the home to deliver babies?

Not quite.  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 not doctors or nurses, people in this line of work called 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 contrasted with the medical model which believes that pregnancy and delivery should be accompanied by medicine to assist and improve the situation.

With that aside, lets look at why a lot of women are having babies at home rather than hospitals.  What are the benefits that are causing women to have homebirths?

First, with the midwife’s continued presence, the labor time can actually be reduced.  Most women don’t realize that the use of pain medications although seemingly helpful in regards to pain, actually slows the labor down.  This really causes more pain and the labor actuallly lasts longer.

Second, midwifery practices actually causes a reduction in the need for forceps and other devices in a delivery.  The process of naturally allowing the birh and delivery to occur is what causes the reduction of the need for those devices.

Third, cesarean delivery possbilities are reduced.  Most cesareans are performed because during labor, somehow a consensus was made that a natural vaginal birth was not possible.  Either because of the safety of the baby was in mind or the safety of the mother.  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.