Does the prevalence of hospital births versus home births make sense?

Hedging our bets… they’re there just in case something goes wrong. I agree that much of the birth process in hospitals is overmedicalized, and submit that it has a lot to do with fear of malpractice suits.

Of course mortality rates are much lower for mothers and babies during birth than 100 years ago.

A good friend of mine lost her baby during childbirth one year ago today. She was in the hospital surrounded by hospital personnel. The cord was wrapped around her body 3 times. You would think this could’ve been prevented.

@filmfann – but you seem to assume a causational relationship there.

The U.S., for instance, is ranked twenty-ninth in industrial nations – mortality rates seem to be more closely related to GDP than anything. Further, there doesn’t seem there doesn’t seem to be a significant difference in infant safety (the difference is negligible and is in both directions)...but there are studies that indicate a drastically reduced likelihood of medical intervention in hospitals. Finally – Holland has a home birth rate of about ⅓ but a lower infant mortality rate. The general advice is: Give birth at home, within 15 minutes of a hospital.

So is it an “of course” given that data?

@chyna – I’m so sorry about that.

@chyna I’m sorry too

To the question—I think it does make sense, not in that it’s what should be done, but in that it’s what humans do in all of life; whether we’re correct or not. (But it’s not that we’re always correct or always wrong, either.)

We’re convinced we’re able to, and are always trying to, improve on nature. We think are sure we can always do better. We don’t trust it.

I think it’s an ingrained thing where we feel the need to have doctors involved in case of emergency. But more and more women are beginning to break free of that “norm”, which is a good thing, because in a lot of cases, doctors seem to have become so insensitive and so sterilized that they’ve forgotten a woman’s body is designed to give birth, and lot of their “suggested delivery protocols” are unnecessary and do more harm than good.

I would like to point out that for my first delivery, I went all doctor all the way, including an epidural and an entire room of staff. I felt very stressed and couldn’t relax and the contractions hurt like hell. They told me to push so hard that I ended up with a third degree tear (and the idiot nurse ended up overstitching me which is why sex is still painful after 10 years). Then, they were in a hurry to get me out, tugged on the umbilical cord to make me deliver the afterbirth faster and ultimately tore my placenta, causing me to hemhorrage for three weeks and ended in a full D&C to correct their fuckup. Directly after the delivery, I had to demand to see my baby, and also had to demand that she not be taken to the nursery. And that damn staff of “medical superheroes” bounced in and out of my room until I finally demanded to be released early, because the bastards wouldn’t let me or my baby get any rest. I was in horrible pain and was so sick for those three weeks that I had no chance to develop that first special bond with my baby because I was incapable of taking care of her.

My second delivery, I used only 2 midwives and a doula. I was completely relaxed with them because no one was scurrying about, pestering me about anything and I breezed through the contractions, even though I was in labor for 24 hours. I did not use an epidural, even though they needed to give me pitocin because I stalled in dilation. I experienced pain ONLY the last 20 minutes, when they hit me hard with the pitocin and I went from 6 centimeters to 10 in about 10 minutes. Everyone was calm about pushing and I didn’t tear at all, even though the baby was bigger than my first. And I was so lucid and comfortable that I was able to immediately put the baby to breast and start nursing. Then they surprised me even further by getting the hell out of my room and letting me sleep. That was the easiest, smoothest, most stress free delivery, and there wasn’t a single bloody “doctor” involved in any of it.

If I ever get pregnant again, I’m going doctor-free again, because all they did was cause me stress and misery when I involved them the first time. And I’d probably be quite comfortable with having the baby at home, with my midwife and doula there to help me.

My birth mother was born at home in 1946 with a doctor in attendance. She’s probably one of the last of her generation in the US where that happened routinely. My grandparents lived in a small town, and the nearest full service hospital was quite a ways away.

I think most babies after WWII were born in hospitals. From what I understand, hospital births were part of a general move towards medicalizing birth and other normal life events. It certainly made hospitals money to have mothers give birth there. In those days, a woman gave birth and was in the hospital for three days. By the late 80s, that was down to maybe over night or 12 hours, whichever came first (something tells me the rise of HMOs contributed to that).

http://www.birthpsychology.com/birthscene/index.html

Were I to have a baby, I’d want to do it as naturally as possible.

Simply considering the emergence of so many super bugs, it seems like a stupid practice.

Simply considering the fact that people were doing it by themselves for tens of thousands of years, it seems that way.

If birth were really so dangerous to us as a species…I don’t think we’d be here.

@iamthemob I agree that birth isn’t dangerous as a species… but the problem is that for any one particular woman, you never know. :-)

(The odds may be one in a million, but you don’t want to be that one.)

I think a lot of it is because of the amount of prenatal care women receive these days. Back in the day, women weren’t really considered “high risk”, where as now, there are a lot of women that are considered to have a “high risk” pregnancy.

I had my son in a hospital 9 years ago because I was diagnosed with preeclampsia and I had to be induced. My preeclampsia came on suddenly and was found at a routine OB appointment. If I didn’t have that appointment, who knows what would’ve happen for my son or me.

I think a lot of it also has to do with how family dynamics have changed over the years. Things were much different when a woman was having a child years ago. Family and neighbors would bring food so that the woman could take it easy before birth and even continue doing so after birth for a bit so that mom and baby could rest. These days, though, woman (at least in the US) work up until they go into labor (or close to it) and return to work as early as 6 weeks later. I think that has a lot to do with it as well. We aren’t as laid back and relaxed as we were (so to speak). Things are a lot more fast paced and it’s more about what we can do in the shortest amount of time we can do it in.

The biggest issue is health compared to our ancestors. Modern diets and lifestyles leave us pretty weak, as have agricultural diets and lifestyles for generations. I remember in college learning that most, if not all, hunter gatherer women give birth basically by going off and squatting. Sometimes they’d take a friend along. With this lowered health, things like infections are more of an issue. Still, a good midwife or similarly trained person can solve that problem.

There is a strong belief that hospitals are safer to deliver children in. This came about because midwifery services were illegal up until twenty or thirty years ago. Midwifery services have been growing in Canada in the last twenty years with all of my friends using their services for the delivery of their children.

If midwives had been available for me I would have used them in a heart beat. They provide much more comprehensive care than a doctor because they are completely devoted to supporting the mom.

That being said in days of old many women died in child birth. My great-grandmother died giving birth to twins (who also died).

I’m not sure what specialty @Dr_Dredd is, but if she’s a family physician like me, she’s delivered a bunch of babies. I’ve known doctors who have done home births and done just fine, and you’re right—it’s an entirely natural process and goes seamlessly. Until it doesn’t.

I actually quit doing deliveries 10 years ago because frankly every single delivery, even the totally normal ones, scared the crap out of me. But I have friends who love doing them, and will even do home births.

That said, this is one of my favorite Monty Python bits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCITMfxvEc

@Rarebear – I totally thought it was going to be the one with “Get that would you, Deirdre?” “All right, Mum.”

@aprilsimnel Every sperm is sacred!