315: The 5 Reasons I Choose Home Birth Over Hospitals
Welcome to the Joyful Mom Podcast!
You may or may not know that I have never been to a hospital to have a baby. Never. And I hope I never do, though if I do then it’s for a reason and I’ll go there if I have to. But I’ve had 8 babies, and they have either been born at home, or at a birth center.
My first 3 babies were born at home, and then due to insurance reasons and that our insurance would cover birth centers but we had to pay out of pocket for home births we switch to a freestanding birth center. Which was fine. But you still had to go there when you were in labor, and after you have baby, you can be there for 4 hours before you have to go home. The birth center is nothing like a hospital, it felt more like a fancy hotel. With a king size bed, a big bath tub that was for birthing, it definitely had a different feel.
I’m actually super glad I had switched to a birth center for my 4th birth, because 4 weeks before she was born, Aria died, and I don’t think there could have been any way I could have had a baby at my house that my daughter just died in.
So- my next 3 babies were born at the birth center, and that was all good. There’s a few differences I noticed about birth centers than home births that I didn’t like, and they were these. They are a lot more medically minded, and push a lot harder on trying to get you to do all these interventions or tests that I haven’t normally done. They are tied to red tape or protocols or rules that they have to follow no matter what, and there’s a staff of many midwives and so you don’t get to choose who your midwife is going to be, like in the hospital, you just get whoever is on at the time.
For my 7th baby, I went back to home birth and it was the best I’ve ever had. She came in 2 hours with just Justin and I at home, and my midwife got there 45 minutes afterwards. It was incredible and an amazing birth. And again, I plan to only do home births from here on out. My 8th also was.
So there’s a little background on my birthing experiences and now I’ll dive into the 5 reasons I do homebirths.
I trust that if my baby is going to die, it’s going to die at home or in the hospital. One of my biggest fears before I had my first baby when I was planning a homebirth, was this idea that if my baby died at home trying to give birth there, how much I would be judged for it being my fault. Even though, I truly and adamantly believe that if my baby is going to die, it doesn’t matter if I’m at home or at the hospital. We can think there are deaths that are preventable…but they aren’t preventable, because they happened. And I have a deep belief that God is in control of my babies life, and if it’s my babies time to go, it doesn’t matter where I am. And I also believe that having a baby is the most natural thing we can do…God created our bodies to have babies. If there are no signs of high risk or no reason to be worried, I do believe having a baby at home is very safe.
Even after Aria died, I do still believe that my baby will die at home or at the hospital if it’s meant to. In fact her death cemented this belief in to me, because there was nothing I could have done to stop her from dying. We don’t get to choose. And so I’m going to have a baby in the place I feel the most comfortable, at ease, and I feel is the best choice for us.
I get to be in my own comfortable space with not very many people there. I like when it’s just my midwife, her assistant or whoever is working with her, my husband and I. I do not think I would do well with a crowd and a bunch of people. One time I had invited my mom and sister in law to come to a birth, but they didn’t make it because baby was born before, and afterwards I realized how glad I was because I don’t actually want anyone else there besides who absolutely needs to be there. That’s why I don’t use a doula or anything else. Just who needs to be there, and that’s all.
I get to have a relationship and connection with my midwives. A part of having a home birth is that you get to know your midwife, trust them, and they learn more about you and what you want for your birth and what you hope for. Obviously everything can change once you are actually in birth, for example I told my midwife and Justin to not let me push when it comes time to push, I just want my body to get baby out, so they tried to remind me when that time came and I said I don’t care I’m pushing. So- there’s that. If I were to give birth at a hospital, you don’t know the nurse, you might not have your doctore, you don’t get to choose who is there, there might be a million people in the room. I don’t know, I just like it this way
Sometimes people ask me how I got my husband on board. As they want a home birth but their husband is not comfortable with it. I didn’t have to do much. He hates hospitals, in fact he gets ill as soon as he walks into one. He also hates needles, so it’s been a good thing I’ve never gotten an epidural and he’s never had to see one! But in all reality, before I decided to do homebirth, I remember talking to my sister-in-law and she was telling me why she does homebirth, and I was like that sounds amazing, but I could never do it. Then when we got married and were expecting our first baby, we just decided to explore that option. We met with our midwifes, I listened to a ton of books, I watched a lot of birth videos on you tube. I learned a lot about birth. And ultimately I felt more comfortable giving birth at home instead of a hospital environment. So if there’s no problems, I like the less invasive, less intervention approach. And I also didn’t realize how much equipment midwives have with them when they come to a birth. Basically the only thing they can’t do is a C-Section, and they have learned a lot of skills to prevent a C-Section in many things that would have automatically been a C-Section in a hospital. So- once we met with them, and we realized how much equipment tools, and skills they have I have felt much safer at home.
Giving birth at home places a lot more responsibility on me to take care of myself, and my body. I like this reason of giving birth at home, because I do take a lot of extra measures to take care of myself. I am far from perfect, but if I’m going to be giving birth at home with the idea that I have no complications, I’m going to do everything I can possibly do to have my body the strongest and healthiest for birth, and my body and baby in the best positioning possible. I do a ton of mind work, visualizations, intention setting to get in the right head space and process and fear or anxiety I have about giving birth. I’m not at all saying you can’t have this mindset if you go to the hospital, I just do think if I didn’t have this perspective when doing a home birth is would be more negligent.
A bonus one just because. I like doing things naturally. I like choosing what I want to do and not do. It’s changed throughout my babies and what testing and ultrasounds I’ve done and not done, and I like the freedom of choice to choose what I want to do. I like that my midwives offer me herbal remedies and supplements, they teach me different positioning and stretches to get my baby in the proper position. I can easily get my placenta and having it dehydrated usually by one of the midwives or someone they know, and I’m not at all look at like I’m weird. They trust that your body knows what it’s doing, they trust that you as the birthing mother know how to give birth and they also know very quickly if something is going wrong. But I’ve always been this way, where I tend to do things differently that everyone else, and homebirth is one of them, along with liking things to be natural if possible.
So- what do you think? Do you do home birth? Do you do hospital birth? I want to note here, that I believe the best place to give birth is the place that you feel comfortable at. For some of you, that’s at the hospital, for others, that’s at home or a birth center, or wherever. This is was an episode meant to shame hospital births, but just to share the reason why *I* do homebirths!
As always my friends take care!
If you want to learn more about how you can clear anxiety more automatically by rewiring how the mind is working and processing things, go to my website www.meganhillukka.com where you can click on a link to register for my free training, where I will show you what you need in order to do this.
