Home birthing offering a more personal intervention for births
For some mothers the idea of being at home in familiar surrounds provides that soon to be new mom with great comfort and reassurance.
Since 2004, giving birth at home is on the climb according to the CDC. Instead of the traditional hospital environment the rate of home births has increased by 29% between 2004 and 2009 equaling almost thirty thousand births occurring at home revealed in the new report.
According to Marian MacDorman, lead author and statistician for CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, it is not clear why the rate of home births is increasing but she believes it has to do with personal preference. Noting that a lot of women really like the idea of home birth because it offers a lower intervention birth. They also have concerns over higher C-section rates and other kinds of interventions which occur in the hospital.
This new report had used information from the National Vital Statistics System, Nationality Data files for the years 1990 to 2009. That information included all births in the United States with a range of demographic and health information on mothers and infants.
Contained within the report was that home births for Caucasian had increased by 36% which equaled one birth in every 90 births had occurred at home. Home births were less common in other racial and ethnic groups.
In a study in 2010, had found that those who had planned home births not only involved less medical interventions but also fewer epidurals, episiotomies, and infections. The study appeared in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
For women aged 35 and older home births are more common and also with women who have previously have given birth. Birth at home also has fewer preterm, lower birth weights or multiple births.
Saraswathi Vedam, chair of standards and practice for the Home Birth Section of the American College of Nurse-Midwives, co-author of the ACNM's Home Birth Practice Handbook, believes that women now are making more informed decisions concerning where to give birth. They have started to question the widespread use of obstetric interventions and want to control the environment they give birth in.”
She further notes that some of the benefits include privacy, comfort and continuing care from someone who they feel they have a personal relationship with such as a midwife.
Dr. George Macones, obstetrician at Washington University, St. Louis, and chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist's committee on obstetric practice stated that where to give birth should be a decision left up to each woman.
If you're looking for an option between the hospital and home birth Dr. Macones suggest a birthing center nearby or adjacent to hospitals. It offers a nice, quite, more natural experience but if something happens you could literally be wheeled underground to the hospital.
The American Pregnancy Association offers information on helping to decide if home birth is something you would like to do. Check with your obstetrician to see if this is a viable option.
If in Detroit and you wish to have a home birth try Henry Ford for certified nurse midwives. The midwives can immediately consult and obstetrician in case of instances such as labor or delivery deviates from the normal course.
Henry Ford Medical Center – New Center One Detroit
3031 West Grand Boulevard Suite 800
Detroit
1-800-436-7936
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