When I called my mother and said I was thinking about having a home birth, she screamed, “Oh my God, why? What’s wrong with the Birth Center? It’s just like home, isn’t it?”

True, the Birth Center where I’d had my daughter, Dominique, six years earlier was homey enough, and it was definitely alternative enough for my mother. I’d been very happy with the experience-except for the fact that we had arrived only 10 minutes before the baby was born.

http://www.mothering.com/pregnancy-birth/not-kind-house-home-birth

To the dismay of many obstetricians, more pregnant women in the United States are choosing to deliver their babies at home. However, the number of home births in the nation is still relatively small compared to other developed countries. One percent of U.S. births are at home, compared to nearly 30 percent in the Netherlands, according to a report in USA Today.

Despite warnings from doctors, some women, like Mara Vaughan of Bristow, Va., prefer delivering their baby in the comfort of their own home.

http://news.aol.com/health/article/home-births-get-a-bump-over-doctors/669091?icid=sphere_newsaol_inpage

New research suggests that home births with the help of a registered midwife are as safe as deliveries in hospitals, The Los Angeles Times reports.

The Canadian study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, compared home births attended by midwives, hospital deliveries by midwives and deliveries by physicians in hospitals, all in British Columbia. Among the three groups, the newborn death rate (less than 1 percent) was about the same. (There was one death in the home birth group; three in the hospital midwife group; and three in the doctor group.)

The study also suggests that women who planned a home birth were less likely to experience a postpartum hemorrhage. Plus, their babies were less likely to suffer a birth trauma or require resuscitation at birth or oxygen therapy.

http://www.fitpregnancy.com/blog/news/Study-Planned-Home-Births-OK-56670127.html

Having your baby at home with a registered midwife is just as safe as a conventional hospital birth, a new study says.

In fact, planned home births of this kind may have a lower rate of complications, according to the study published in the Sept. 15 issue of CMAJ.

Even though the study was conducted in Canada, where attitudes toward midwifery are more accepting than in some other countries, the findings may help to calm an ongoing controversy in the United States and elsewhere.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is opposed to home births, as are certain organizations in Australia and New Zealand. More organizations in Great Britain are supportive and Canadian provinces are currently transitioning to midwifery, said study lead author Patricia Janssen, director of the Master of Public Health Program at the University of British Columbia.

http://www.kold.com/global/story.asp?s=11020363

http://www.pregtastic.com/homebirth-101-the-home-court-advantage/

What exactly is homebirth? Who is a good candidate and why might you want to consider a homebirth? How and why a homebirth is safe. When is a homebirth not recommended, and what’s the plan of action if hospital transfer becomes necessary? What are the costs and what does insurance cover? And, thoughts on young siblings being present during a birth. Midwife Marla Hicks is this week’s guest on PregTASTIC Pregnancy Podcast.

http://www.organic-birth.com/homebirth_bed.html

While, in my experience, many, if not most, homebirth moms, do not get into bed until after the baby is born, it is still a great idea to have the bed made once labor begins so you are able to rest if you want to and not worry about the mattress’ safety if your membranes rupture.

Below, I outline the easy way to prepare your bed so it remains clean and body fluid free. Besides saving the mattress, practical reasons for having a birth bed made will also make things easier after your baby is born.

Not sure what the mattress ads in your TV market are like, but around here, they typically feature a wacky mattress store giant ready to slash prices on name brands! (Pillow tops! Kings!) Or a barely compatible couple setting wildly variant firmness levels on his/her side of the bed.

But in today’s installment of How Euros Aren’t Like Americans, we bring you the mattress ad. Here’s a French one featuring two guys snuggling with the line “And you, how do you sleep?”

Or this: an ad from Spain featuring a homebirth.

Unless you work for hippies (or in Spain), this video is NSFW.

http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2009/04/17/mattress-ad-features-homebirth.aspx

Contractions started Saturday afternoon, the 8th of July 2006 for me. It was kind of funny because Guy and Laurie left, and not very long after that, I had a contraction.. of course at first I didn’t think it was anything different than the “braxton hicks” contractions, so I just kept going on, not thinking of anything. Well then the World Cup game came on, and I had a few more contractions, and it was really making me wonder.. could this baby be coming?!! Contractions were coming at about 1 every hour, but I still figured that I was just in early labor.. and that this kid was gonna arrive within the next few days of that…

http://www.indiebirth.com/2009/03/06/aprils-homebirth-story/#more-324

If you’re newly pregnant, chances are you have never heard the truth about why homebirth is a safer choice for low-risk pregnancies. And if you’re not newly pregnant, it is never to late to consider your options and give birth to your baby at home.

“The first intervention in natural childbirth is the one that a healthy woman does herself when she walks out the front door of her own home in labour.”

— Michael Rosenthal, OB/GYN (from Midwifery Today E-news 7:24)

http://www.indiebirth.com/2008/08/25/10-homebirth-facts-no-ones-telling-you/#more-107

The latest research, published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics, focused on the Netherlands, where around 30 per cent of births take place at home.

Of all births in England and Wales in 2006, 2.7 per cent took place at home, the most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed. A total of 18,100 were at home, out of a total of 662,915.

The number of home births has been on the rise from an all-time low of 0.9 per cent in 1988 and a major study is currently being carried out into the safety of giving birth in different settings in England and will report by the end of 2010.

http://www.euronews24.org/united-kingdom/home-births-as-safe-as-hospital-1/

On Twitter @benjamingeiger asked me what are the benefits of home birth over hospital birth. I’ll admit that it was a question that made me stop and stare for a few minutes. When you’re as obsessed about birth as I am asking if there are benefits of having a home birth is a bit like asking if there are benefits to breathing. I have to remind myself that not everyone can list the benefits off the top of their head like most in the birth community can.

Because Twitter has a 140 character limit I decided to put together a short list of the benefits of home birth over hospital birth. I know I have several readers who are birth junkies like me, so please jump in the comments and add your own benefits.

http://wiredfornoise.com/the-benefits-of-home-birth

This morning in Babble Wrap we linked to a story about the tragic deaths of four babies in the last nine months during homebirths. The article in the Telegraph painted a picture of women undergoing ‘risky’ homebirths as they are ‘refugees’ of an interventionist hospital system which does not provide continuity of care towards pregnant women.

At least one of these births, however, was unattended by a medical professional. Janet Fraser, national convener of the Joyous Birth organisation, is mourning the death of her own baby during a water birth at her Croydon Park home, attended by her partner and a female friend. She is yet to make a statement.

There is a massive difference between midwife-attended homebirths, which have been proven in other countries to have a similar level of safety to hospital births, and what is known as ‘freebirthing’, where no qualified medical attendant is present. The difference was unclear in the original report.

http://www.babble.com.au/2009/04/06/homebirthing-vs-freebirthing-there-is-a-difference/

Yesterday in New York City, Julie Finefrock appeared before the health fund subcommittee of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) as part of her appeal of their denial of her homebirth coverage. Ms. Finefrock, who is six months pregnant, is married to an SEIU employee. Their insurance plan excludes homebirth coverage, despite New York State regulations that require that private insurance cover out-of-hospital birth with a licensed practitioner. Ms. Finefrock’s situation is just one example of a larger fight to increase access to homebirth nationally, and it’s a fight that has ramped up due to new media attention to the issue.

One mother laboring with her midwife on the roof of her Cobble Hill penthouse, gorgeous Manhattan skyline in the background. Another holding her newborn on her living room couch, exposed brick and high ceilings behind her. These are just two of the scenes from the November New York Times article and slideshow about the growing interest among New York City women in birthing at home. These images paint a very specific picture of homebirth–all the women were pictured in spacious, nicely decorated apartments and, with the exception of one African-American woman, all were white. Watch the popular Ricki Lake documentary The Business of Being Born, released last year, and you get a similar story: Lake and her interviewees were all financially well off and could afford to choose to birth at home. Neither the Times article nor Lake’s film touched on one thing that all these women seemed to have in common–money.

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/03/19/the-cost-being-born-at-home

Serious, intelligent women are saying “no” to maternity care that, contrary to what obstetricians and hospitals would lead us to believe, actually increases risk and danger for mother and baby.  Women who choose to give birth at home are making their decisions based on best evidence. If you need to be convinced visit the Cochrane Library, or read A Guide to Effective Care in Pregnancy and Childbirth, or read our book. The Childbirth Connection response to the 2006 ACOG policy statement on home birth is also important  reading.

The Cochrane review has not been updated since 1998. At that time there was only one study reviewed and that had a small sample. In spite of that, the recommendation was, and continues to be, that healthy women should not be advised against home birth. That recommendation is based on two realities: there is no evidence (and there never has been) that hospital birth is safer than planned home birth; and, there is no evidence that planned home birth is not as safe as hospital birth.  In 2005 a large study of home birth was published in the British Medical Journal. The study meets all the standards for scientific rigor. The research findings? For a healthy woman having a normal pregnancy, a planned, midwife attended home birth is as safe as a hospital birth and with far lower rates of medical interventions (that bring their own short and long term dangers).

http://www.givingbirthwithconfidence.org/?p=189

Now that I’m living in the Netherlands, chances are high that the next baby will be born at home. Currently, one in three babies are born at home here! To compare: in the UK, only about 2% of the babies are born at home, in the US, it is about 0.5%. I couldn’t find any percentages for France or Italy; I’m not sure it’s even legal there!

http://babyccinoblog.com/2008/03/18/the-dutch-way-homebirth-and-at-home-maternity-care/

A recent review of the country’s maternity services recommended the Federal Government overhaul the power given to midwives.

If accepted by Health Minister Nicola Roxon’s department, some midwives could be given access to many benefits doctors have – like Medicare, drug prescribing rights and even professional indemnity insurance.

But the review made clear that those midwives who assist in homebirths should not be supported as a mainstream birth option.

http://cfd.net.au/home/20090402/article/mothers-defend-right-to-home-birth

This has been a terrible few days for homebirth midwives here in Australia, the articles so bad and lacking in information.
This is a particularly bad one so you can all see what is happening. I have no idea whether 4 babies have died in the past 9 months but I don’t think they have either, it was something said by an Obstetrician and then taken on a role.

It is so unfair that journalists who knows nothing about birth and can’t be bothered to research it properly can get this garbage published.

I wonder how many babies died in hospital during the same period? How many women were needlessly opened up and their baby’s dragged out and will spend the next few years dealing with the aftermath and trauma every day of their lives? How many babies will suffer long term effects of entering into the world a way that in absolutely not the normal process.

http://www.homebirth.net.au/2009/04/free-for-all-to-attack-homebirth.html

Extra midwives are to be recruited for Northampton General Hospital, using £1.75 million of NHS funding to ensure every woman can choose a home birth.
The funding was revealed by NHS managers in their far-reaching health plan for the next 12 months, which will cost at least £7.5 million.

A total of £1.75 million will be spent on the maternity departments at Northampton General Hospital and Kettering General Hospital.

Most of the money will be ploughed into hiring midwives to ease stretched services and will allow women to choose where they give birth, which is a key Government priority.

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/175m-for-midwives-to-raise.5110025.jp