Alabama Midwives Alliance

Most of the time before legislators (or the press, or the medical community) are able to hear about your need for a qualified attendant for home birth, they simply want to know: "Why would anyone want to have a home birth in this day and age?" How you answer this question is critical, because it could feed the prejudices of those not connected with home birth and shut down their ability to hear about your need for a midwife.

The ecstasy of the experience tends to prevail when a woman speaks of her home birth. Unfortunately, speaking of the serenity, calm, control, peace, beauty, and empowerment of your birth opens you and the case of home birth to the "selfish mother" response. They will (and do) say, "Those people care more about their own ‘experience’ and personal comfort than the safety of the baby." Very few become curious about that joy or ever wonder why more women don't have an ecstatic reaction to birth. When speaking about the home birth option, we must rein in our emotions and present facts.

Emphasizing the safety that home birth offers your baby is effective. Compared to the "convenience" of a scheduled, painless birth, with a $20 co-pay to cover all expenses, where someone else has to wash the sheets and cook the meals, home birth is a sacrifice of your comfort and your family's resources. It is a sacrifice, but also an investment in the safety, health, and wellbeing of the entire family unit.

Listed below are talking points that can be used to identify home birth as the safest option:

1. Safest for a healthy mom and baby is a birth that optimizes the physiological design of birth. To insure the baby’s safety, the birth should be free of stress to mom and baby. Interference with the intricate complexity of birth often leads to greater interventions and unnecessary harm to both mother and baby. Research in the US and around the world confirms the safety of home birth with a qualified attendant. The World Health Organization recognizes the safety of birth away from the hospital and with a midwife.

2. Safest for a baby is a mother that is without injury from the birth. A mother who is physically well is best able to tend to her baby in the critical first days of life. Interventions such as surgery become necessary more often in a hospital setting to correct disturbed physiology. Research on US midwives showed moms to be safer out of the hospital. A healthy and uninjured mom is critical for the safety of the baby.

3. Safest for a baby and mother are the naturally occurring neurohormones which support mother-baby interactions subconsciously. Animals deprived of those neurohormones during birth have difficulty with mothering, at times failing to complete the mothering process at all. Surveys of women after routine hospital births show that they are at high risk for postpartum depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, both of which seriously interfere with the safety, wellbeing, and normal development of the baby and the security of the family.

4. Safest for a baby is being welcomed by an intact family. Home birth creates an environment where siblings can fully participate in the joy of the birth without being separated from their mother. Midwifery care strives to include fathers, not as tolerated observers, but as active participants. Baby is safest when the entire family is free of jealousy and fully embraces the new life. A strong, healthy marriage is a great safety net for a baby. Disturbance of the relationship, by lack of recognition of its importance and interference during routine hospital care where the father is disconnected and marginalized during the birth, creates unnecessary challenges at a vulnerable time.

Quick Summary:

1. Parents do not choose home birth because they value the mother’s personal comfort above the safety and well-being of their baby.

2. Parents choose home birth to provide for the physical and emotional well-being of their baby.

3. Parents’ choice of home birth is based on evidence of safety in the US and around the world.

4. Parents’ choice of home birth protects not only the immediate physical safety of the baby (which it does), but also the long-term well-being of the family unit.

5. As a bonus, the experience often happens to be peaceful, sacred, blissful, joyful, and ecstatic.