What is a Home Birth?
For many, the idea of childbirth conjures up images of a sterilized hospital room, with the mother attended by nurses and doctors, while friends and relatives pace the waiting room. In our modern times, hospital birth seems like the only safe option expectant mothers have for delivery. Proponents of home birth believe that delivering your child at home, attended by trained nurses and nurse midwives, is just as safe, if not safer, and more emotionally satisfying than a hospital delivery. For millennia, mothers have delivered their babies at home — whether it be a cave, a tent or on the open prairie. While medical advances are undeniably beneficial to both mother and child, many believe that medical intervention is not always required. Advocates of home birth believe that, while modern medicine is useful and often necessary, most mothers who have had a healthy, complication free pregnancy can safely deliver a child at home. Proponents of home birth suggest that the United States’ poor ra
