Of the many blessings in my life, I count my three home births among the most beautiful experiences I have known. People often seem incredulous when they learn that I gave birth at home, asking, “Weren’t you scared?” I was not in the least bit scared, but I would have been terrified had I gone to a hospital. Some of their friends did not believe them, when my daughters told them they had been born at home. How can the world have, in such a relatively short time, come to the dominant belief that babies must be born in a hospital? Babies have been born at home since humans first walked the earth and we have out numbered every other mammalian species on the planet.
There has been a rise in the number of home births since the pandemic. Women are opting for the safety and welcoming environment of home, over the bright lights, noise, and germ ridden hospitals to bring their tiny bundles of joy into the world. Let’s be real here. The main reason that most doctors insist on hospital birth is for their own convenience. A trained lay midwife on the other hand, has infinite patience. She understands that every labor and every mother is different and cannot be molded to the expectations and time constraints of a hospital staff.
If I was a baby being born into the world, I would certainly opt for the quiet ambience of a home birth, to be welcomed into the hands of a practiced midwife and handed into the arms of my own mother – not first into the gloved hands of a stranger, to be weighed, washed, and examined. Life is hard, so should we not want the best possible beginning?
Too many babies are born prematurely, often due to the poor health of the mother, and they spend their first weeks in a plastic tub, hooked up to machines and cared for by numerous strangers. Why have we come to view this as normal?
Lay midwives have faced an uphill battle in our modern medically driven society. That legal grey area where it only becomes illegal to give birth at home, if a complication arises, discourages many women from choosing home birth. As long as we continue to give our power away to the medical institutions, the majority of babies will continue to be born in hospitals and birthing centers. Blessed are those babies whose parents opt for natural, drug free, home birth.
