Why homebirth?

You might recall my mentioning that we're planning for this baby to be born at home. You might also, if you are like many people, be wondering why.

Personally, I have two main motivations:

1) Since I'm planning to give birth without pain medication, I will need a variety of alternative pain management strategies, and being at home will make it easier for me to use them.

While some of the strategies I used with Isaac's birth were physical in nature -- position, movement, massage -- for me the most important strategies were mental. I believe that one major reason I was able to give birth to Isaac without using (or even desiring) pain medication was that I was able to do all of my laboring in the security and peace of my own home. I felt relaxed, safe, and comfortable, so I could focus all my attention and energy inward.

Also important to my successful mental attitude was the security and support I received from having one continuous labor support person. In the case of Isaac's birth, this was a doula who provided no medical care, so when we went to the hospital (once I started pushing!) for the actual birth, his delivery was managed by a doctor. In the case of this birth, however, we will have the continuous care of the midwife for both labor and delivery (without a last-minute drive to the hospital!), which should be a great improvement.

2) Since I believe that many of the medical interventions routinely performed in the hospital create problems by changing the course of normal labor, being at home will make it easier to avoid them.

If I am in need of medical care beyond what the midwife can provide, we'll go to the hospital right away. I am not frightened of doctors and I like Western medicine! But I'll admit that I am nervous about the medical approach to labor and birth, which advocates active management, and I'm especially nervous about the many interventions which would require me to stay in bed. I don't want to be timed, induced, augmented, continuously monitored, hydrated via IV, catheterized, sedated, or numbed. (Unless I need to be, of course.) I think of this as the "cascade of chaos," where one small action on the part of hospital staff creates a need for more action, until a real problem has been created.

Isaac was born in the hospital, and although I avoided medications, I did give birth tethered to a fetal monitor and an automatic blood pressure cuff. Although I only had the machines attached to me for the last hour or 45 minutes, they made me mentally uncomfortable, as I was unnerved by their continuous feedback, as well as physically uncomfortable, as they required me to remain in bed on my back. At a homebirth the baby and I will both be monitored as well, but the monitoring will be done intermittently, by a human being, which I anticipate will be less intrusive and disturbing.

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And what about my homebirthing readers? (I know there are at least two of you!) What are your motivations for choosing to give birth at home?