Unless you have looked into birth alternatives for yourself, or know someone who has had a homebirth, you might think that midwives became extinct with the advent of birth in hospitals. None of that could be farther from the truth. Midwives still exist. We are well educated, have vast amounts of experience, follow protocols, and take our work very seriously. We service women from all walks of life and economic status. The most common reasons expressed by my clients for choosing a homebirth are basically instinctual. They wish to remain in the familiarity, safety and security of their home where they can move around freely as they please, eat when hungry, drink nutritious beverages for energy, and be surrounded by family and those they love. Through that support, they find the strength to work with the healthy pain of contractions, avoid interventions and drugs that will affect the natural course of labor, and protect their unborn baby from the ill affects of those medications. They know that pain is an integral part of the birth experience and can be overcome with physical and emotional support.
Many women feel threatened by the presence of imposed modern technological practices in institutional settings. That fear, along with medical interventions, will affect labor. Like all other creatures, a mother guided by her own beliefs and instincts, will deliver her baby spontaneously and safely when she is unthreatened and left to her body’s natural time clock. As my father (who delivered over 3000 babies) would say to reassure me when I was pregnant – “Don’t forget that women were designed to have babies!”
If a woman can get beyond our present culture’s controlling ideas as to how, when, and where birth should happen – she will discover the inner strength necessary, and join the trillions of women who have come before her, to give birth while trusting in her own abilities to get the job done!
