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Nature Cure
Keith Spaulding ND LAc
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Homebirthing |
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Women have been giving birth naturally at home since the beginning of human life on earth. It is only in the past century that we have medicalized birth and moved it largely into the confines of the hospital. There have been some advantages in this practice when births are high risk – infant mortality has declined when babies have been born prematurely or with other serious medical problems. Mother’s lives have been saved when there is a traumatic medical complication.
But for all of our technological advances, our infant mortality rates are not the best in the world. And our C-section rate is the highest in the world. Our rate of intervention and enormous medical cost tops all other countries. The interventions that have been discovered to save lives are often the cause of damage to mother or child. Where pregnancy and birth is concerned, the choices made are not always the best ones for mother and baby.
In the Netherlands, where the infant mortality rate is 5.2 per 1000 live births, women are required to see a midwife first and give birth at home unless there is some medical reason that they should not. Cilia Bannenburg, now a New Hampshire Certified Midwife (NHCM), is from the Netherlands and practices in Barrington, NH. She reports that if women want to see an OB/GYN they either have to have a referral from their midwife for a medical complication during their pregnancy or pay for it out of pocket. The same goes for delivering in the hospital. The cost savings to their society in general are enormous. The United States ranks 28th of all developed nations for infant mortality, whereas the Netherlands ranks 13th.
In addition to safety and saving money, many women are choosing home birth for other reasons. Deborah Lack, who recently gave birth to her second child at home, sees pregnancy and childbirth as a natural, normal process. "I've done a lot of research and reading on pregnancy and childbirth,” says Ms. Lack, mother of two, “and the one constant I have seen is that relaxing makes the birth process better for you and your baby, and that fear and tension make it worse. I don't know anybody who LIKES being in a hospital. I chose to give birth to my two children at home because that's where we are most comfortable and where I had the most control over what was going on.”
Midwives, either certified midwives, naturopathic doctors who specialize in natural childbirth, or nurse midwives, are all trained to make sure that everything is going well and is normal during the course of prenatal care. Even during delivery, there are many checks in place to assure that both mother and baby are well. Should any signs occur that denote otherwise, midwives know to transfer to a hospital where they are equipped to deal with such problems.
“In the time that you spend during prenatal visits with clients, you come to know what they are capable of. Then during labor, you can kind of gauge what she can handle and what she can’t. If you were meeting someone for the first time when they are in labor, you wouldn’t have that knowledge,” says Jeanne Browne, New Hampshire Certified Midwife and owner of Concord Birth and Wellness Center.
Not only are more and more women choosing to deliver at home, but some practitioners who began in the hospital setting have moved their expertise to the home birth arena. Valerie Jacques was a registered nurse working in labor and delivery and saw what was going on in terms of protocols and insurance coverage. “I felt that women needed more options than what hospitals were providing,” says Ms. Jacques, an NHCM in the Seacoast area. The only negative, she says, is that insurance companies won’t pay moms choosing midwives, even though they provide more than adequate care.
Supporting the laboring mother and watching
diligently to make sure both mother and baby are safe are the key duties
of the home birth midwife. The options for medical interference are far
fewer, and midwives are trained to let the process unfold naturally. The
advent of constant fetal monitoring began a trend of increasing
Caesarean sections in the U.S. But there was no noticeable drop in
infant mortality. Another reason for more c-sections is the use of
epidurals, which numb the woman from the waist down, so that she can no
longer get out of bed and move around during labor. Many midwives feel
that body posture and movement help the baby descend during labor. If a
woman is confined to the bed, the labor may go longer or stall out
completely. With an epidural, a woman can’t feel the urge to push her
baby out.
“My
decision to have a natural childbirth at home was based on a lot of
thought and research,” says Alixx Hutsenpiller of Francestown, NH. “I
wanted to give birth in an atmosphere surrounded by people who would
support and trust me wholeheartedly in this path. I knew that I
wanted our child to open her eyes for the very first time in the arms of
her parents in the comforts of her home.
I
also very carefully considered the well being of our child, so I was
pleasantly surprised to learn of the safety of homebirth for a low-risk
pregnancy.”
Alixx’s birth experience was very different from what many women have in the hospital. “There were no bright lights, no interferences, no distractions. I was not interfered with during labor, not medicated, and not rushed. There was only the love and support of my husband and the two qualified midwives of our choice. My husband played a major role during the birth. His involvement in the birth was much more intimate than it could have ever been in a hospital. I feel an extraordinary sense of power and courage to have been able to have a natural home birth.”
For safety, peace, and control over the process, women all over the U.S. are choosing to have their babies at home. The feeling of joy and empowerment that women realize afterwards is the icing on the cake.
Birth statistical information prepared by March of Dimes Perinatal Data Center, Aug 2002.