Is Home Birth Really Becoming Popular?

Yesterday at the OB’s office – the place I’ve had to be at twice this pregnancy because homebirthers here in South Carolina are required to have certain blood tests and see an OB twice during pregnancy (at the cost of the mother) – I was a part of a perplexing conversation.

Once I told the secretaries that I was a home birth patient, two different times two different women said to me “oh home birth? it’s so popular right now!“.

I was surprised, honestly. I’ve been a homebirther since 2004, and have never, ever been told it was popular. Considering the rate of home birth in the U.S. still hovers around 1%, I figured they were referring just to their OB practice and laughed a bit. They asked when I had my first home birth, and when I told them it was almost 7 years ago they acted like I was a relic that belonged in a museum.

But what was more interesting to me was the fact that in their questioning was the unmistakeable tone of mocking me. As if, because home birth was so “trendy” right now, I was doing something just to be cool. Even my OB agrees that for low-risk mothers (especially mothers like myself, who’ve had a previous home birth) home birth is perfectly safe and a valid choice.

I came home and refreshed my mind on not only the home birth stats in the U.S., but wondered if it was true that it was really becoming more popular here in this country.

The thing is – it is no where near popular. And considering the fact that the maternal and infant mortality rates in the U.S. rank us worse than almost every other industrialized nation (yes, it’s shocking how bad it is) despite the fact that we spend more money per capita on maternal care, and in recent years not only have those numbers not gotten better, but scheduled cesareans and otherwise non-medical inductions are on the rise? I don’t see the point in laughing off home birth as a trend instead of acknowledging it as a good option for mothers.

The other thing that bothers me about this – if home birth IS perceived as being “on the rise” as this ABCnews piece suggests, why has home birth been under attack in recent years? Between trying to ban birth pools, CPS taking away babies of home birthers and one of the main OBGYN associations in the country coming out against home birth, I have to wonder.

Several professional organizations still say home birth is safe in low-risk pregnancies when proper prenatal care is taken, including the World Health Organization, the American Public Health Association, the National Perinatal Association, and the American College of Nurse-Midwives. And I believe it’s an intensely personal decision. It might not be right for everyone, but that doens’t make it unsafe. I’ve yet to see the safety of home birth actually compared to the safety of hospital birth in a research study, but I have a feeling that will never happen. Usually the rare horror stories of home birth are trotted out and compared to the best case scenario of hospital births, forgetting about the horror stories out there with hospital births as well.

In the meantime, relics like myself will just keep doing what’s best for our babies and ourselves, hoping that one day the myth that home birth is unsafe will finally be put to rest.

http://blogs.babble.com/being-pregnant/2011/08/24/is-home-birth-really-becoming-popular/