What are the benefits and drawbacks to a home birth? For low risk women, a midwife attended home birth is considered as safe as a hospital birth. Well, I want to specify that when I am talking about home...
Well, I want to specify that when I am talking about home birth I am talking about planned home birth with a trained attendant. We now have a large very well designed study of over 5000 home births conducted since the year 2000 in North America. Out of 5000 birthing women we found that the safety of home birth and low risk hospital birth is the same. In other words, the safety to the mother and safety to babies is the same when she plans a home birth with a trained attendant or when she gives birth in the hospital and she is having a low risk birth.
The safety is the same but the difference is that the home birth utilizes much less intervention. A tenth of the intervention and up to half of the intervention that would be used for the same low risk birth in the hospital. We know that some of the routine intervention through a hospital are unnecessary and do not contribute to the health of mothers and babies and we know this from this very large study of over 5000 planned home birth in North America.
When a woman plans a home birth with a trained attendant she is cultivating a very strong trusting relationship with this midwife and this midwife is attending her birth is drawing on a legacy of ancient tools to help her birth unfold naturally and normally. It's very important that the birth be low risk and the woman doesn't have any risk factors that would require her to need intervention. The other big benefits to home birth is that the midwife keeps the mother and baby unit very close together. The midwife has a very genuine respect for the baby and for the way the baby is handled and treated. She will treat the baby very softly and, unless absolutely necessary, the mother and baby are kept together very closely because we know that babies who are in the constant presence of their mothers will transition at the moment of birth the most smoothly. So midwifes keep mothers and babies together and know that what's good for the baby is good for the mother and what's good for the mother is good for the baby.
The biggest drawback is that if an emergency does arrive you are not in the hospital where medical care could be provided. The other draw back is that pain medication is not immediately available. We do know that 87% of planned home births in North America were completed at home, so most of the women that plan to have a home birth did end up having it. A trained professional midwife knows how to transfer appropriately for certain complications that may arise in order to keep her safe. A midwife would transfer before birth became an emergency.
