Home Birth or Hospital? Tori Kropp Turns Down the Heat on a Polarizing Topic

[4breastfeeding]

The right way to give birth is with ethical medical support, even if at a distance from a hospital. Such situations in the US are spotty at best. Women in hospitals don't get to lead out in birth, they get pushed around and ignored far too much. So barring that ethical support women have to choose what is safest for them personally, because there is risk on both sides.

[hollywoodnun]

What really bothers me about American culture and birth is that so few women have midwives, in or out of hospital (8%). Homebirth is not for everyone, but I would argue that a midwife is (unless you absolutely need the services of an OB for medical reasons). If you want interventions you can still have them under the direction of a midwife. But OB's are surgeons, they are not trained in normal birth and the wide range that encompasses. If you want a natural birth, anywhere, you need a midwife.

[missbkc]

what a load of absolute crap "you can have a wonderful experience giving birth in a hospital, it can be as natural and home-like as you like." many times women who want their birth to be "natural" in the hospital are ridiculed, made to feel stupid and that they're not doing the best for their baby unless they accept intervention inflicted upon them. Thousands of women die around the world during childbirth because they do not have a skilled midwife, not because they're not in hospital.

[doggykittydad]

PS In my experience, I've never known any Amerian woman to be made to feel guilty for having their baby in a hospital. On the contrary, it is women who choose home birth who are treated like they are crazy, and who are given lectures by doctors and medical staff that something could go terribly wrong if they don't birth in a hospital. So this thing about women being made to feel guilty for birthing in a hospital is a bunch of BS!

[doggykittydad]

Women die around the world not becaue of the home birth process, but because of poor sanitation, unclean drinknig water, and lack of adequate food. The medical community has lead us to believe that women and babies die because they don't get prenatal care or because they birth outside of a hospital, but that is simply not the case.  And regardless of what the medical community would have us believe, for low risk pregnancies and births, it statically IS safer to have a home birth.

[LauriesTubin]

I just started reading the published literature on the subject and you actually wrong. Planned homebirths are absolutely just as, if not more, safe than hospital births. Saying that women are dying all over the world from giving birth? Thats incredibly misleading. Thats ALL births, including the 98% of US women delivering in hospitals.

My next baby is going to be born at home! A wonderful experience at a hospital? Thats an oxymoron. I know, Ive already done it at a hospital!

[whitneycanales]

Many emergencies happen in hospitals b/c of unnecessary interventions. IMO, only high-risk births should occur in a hospital setting. Pregnancy & birth isn't a disease - it's a very natural thing. To birth in a hospital in the Netherlands, a woman actually needs written consent from her midwife saying she is too high-risk to have a homebirth. If our system is working out so great, then why does the US have the highest mortality rate of any developed country?

[Naomidoula]

I agree that there is no "right" way to give birth, and that women should not be made to feel guilty for giving birth in the hospital. However, it is misleading for you to say that women are dying from childbirth every minute, when that is not necessarily because of a home birth. Most of those deaths occur in third world countries, and the countries with the fewest deaths around the time of childbirth, are ones in which midwives, and home birth, are the standard of care.