The Reason to Birth at Home

Our decision to have a home birth was made without much consideration. As I get more into studying birth and its many facets: style, ritual, history, current statistics etc...I feel more and more settled about our choice.

I want to give birth at home simply because I want to be present throughout the process. I don't wish to be hooked up to machines, have drugs pushed on me, or be told that I don't have to be a martyr by giving birth naturally. Modern medicine kicks butt at infectious disease and trauma. If I wind up with the Asian bird flu or get a hand chopped off, it is modern medicine I have faith in to help my body get on the track towards healing. Pregnancy is neither pathological nor a trauma situation. (OF COURSE there will always be exceptions...That, I am aware of). I am also aware however, of the incidence of hospital induced 'complications.' Completely normal women, who have had very normal, easy pregnancies, go into the hospital to give birth naturally only to be treated as though their body were the enemy to the baby they had carried for so many months. They are hooked up to machines. The machine takes precedence over them. Everyone focuses on the machine. The mother becomes some disposable creature in the process. Some women are told to quiet down when they vocalize the pain of labor and contractions. They make the hospital staff nervous with their chosen pain coping mechanisms. If I feel like roaring like a lion while propped up on all fours while in labor--I need the freedom to do that. I need to have the freedom to listen to my own body and do what it requires in order to birth a healthy baby. I want to give birth in the intimacy of my own home surrounded by my germs--not the nosocomial infections one would be guaranteed acquiring after a brief stay in any hospital.

Los Angeles, according to one statistic, has a current cumulative cesarean birth rate of 40%. Even the American College of OB/GYNs say that 15% is the maximum percentage that is acceptable. Granted, L.A. is a grossly populated land area. And of course, there will be many high risk births in hospitals, and then there are yahoo celebrities like Brittany Spears and Kate Hudson who have elective cesarean births for some reason I don't quite understand. But this isn't a blog about pregnancy stats and averages. This is a blog on my experience.

Some might be thinking that I am approaching this naively, having never actually given birth. I think that same thought all the time. It is then I have to tap into the great resource which contains tens of thousands of years worth of women who have found the power within themselves to give birth naturally. Am I scared? Yes. Do I think I can do this? Yes. Will it hurt? I'm counting on it.