Birthing Spirit

A Canadian Homebirth study just published looked at 2889 planned homebirths attended by midwives, 4752 hospital births attended by the SAME midwives and 5331 hospital births attended by doctors.

The study found that birth at home with a midwife was as safe as birth in hospital and homebirth was associated with fewer adverse outcomes for mothers and babies.

Women who birthed at home were less likely to experience obstetric interventions including:

• electronic fetal monitoring
• augmentation of labour (‘moving things along’ by rupturing the membranes or administering oxytocin)
• assisted vaginal delivery (with forceps or vacuum)
• caesareans
• episiotomies (cutting the opening of the vagina)

Those having a homebirth were less likely to:

• have a 3rd or 4th degree tear
• have a postpartum haemorrhage
• have a newborn who had birth trauma
• have a newborn requiring resuscitation at birth
• have a newborn requiring oxygen for more than 24hours

When the 88 women who had had a previous c-section were excluded from the homebirth group there were no changes to any of the statistics.

If you know nothing about the physiology of birth you may be asking WHY do women and babies do better at home? The best article I have found that explains this so beautifully was published in MIDIRS and is by Tricia Anderson. The only online copies I can find are HERE and HERE.

Some of Dr Sarah Buckley’s articles on the hormones of birth also give a good idea about how birth works:

• Ecstatic Birth: Natures hormonal blueprint for labour
• Pain in Labour: Your hormones are your helpers
• Leaving well alone: a natural approach to the 3rd stage of labour