I love the quote, “Most people put more effort into researching their new camera or car than they do for the birth of their child.”. I think that this applies to so many aspects of people’s lives — especially those affecting their health.

My sister recently had a home birth, and she had a wonderful experience. Both her and baby are very healthy and everything went very well.
I am a nursing student and I just finished my maternity rotation- and, even though I’m not close to having kids, I am more considering that path for when (if) I have children.

It’s encouraging to hear that your IT bands are starting to heal. After my half- marathon next month, I HAVE to take time to heal mine.

That salad looks delicious. I actually thought that was butter on your toast :D.

I gave birth to my first baby two months ago. I watched that documentary before giving birth and all of the other books, etc. that promote home births and natural births. I have to say that I think that the “dangers” of a hospital birth are pretty overblown. I went in to the hospital wanting a natural birth but had to be induced because I was overdue (I was also pretty uncomfortable at this point so I welcomed it). I needed an epidural when the contractions were really strong, and soon after that my doctor broke my water. This helped my labor progress faster than it would have otherwise and let me rest so I could be ready for the pushing. A lot of epidurals these days are put in so that they will wear off when you push so that you can work with your contractions to get the baby out. Anyway, when my daughter was born the cord was wrapped very tightly around her neck. I am glad that my obstetrician was right there to cut it and get everything out. And it was extremely comforting that have her handed over to the nursery staff who were able to look her over and reassure me that she was healthy. Even though I had an epidural my daughter has been very healthy and strong.

I think that women who want natural or home births should go for it, but don’t buy everything that that industry promotes. Remember, midwives are businesses too! They promote themselves and their industry just like other businesses. Getting an epidural or going to a hospital doesn’t make you weak, doesn’t diminish the awesomeness of giving birth, and won’t irreparably damage your child.

I’m actually a Labor and Delivery charge nurse at a hospital where I have worked for almost 7 years. I love the movie the Business of Being Born. I find it really interesting and some of the information to be completely true. Saying that, I have seen with my own eyes enough situations where things have gone or could have gone terribly wrong and mother and babies would have died had they not be in the hospital at that very moment. Enough that I would NEVER EVEN CONSIDER anything but a hospital birth. I have never pushed anything on a patient that I know they don’t want. I want my patients to have the “birth experience” that they want to have. I have an open conversation with my patients at the very beginning and express this to them. I also tell them if they at any point change their minds about what they want I will never think less of them and I will adjust my plan of care to suit their changing needs. Some women go in to it with unrealistic expectations and then when they see what its really about realize what they thought was important to them at the beginning may not be and other things may actually be more important. I want my patients to get exactly what they want, starting with a healthy baby. My only problem I’ve had from this movie and TV shows is when people come in with the “medical staff is the enemy” mentality. There are bad doctors and bad nurses out there, but they are few and far between from my experience.

I had NO idea PIT existed. I had a huge WTF on my face when I they said it was a drug to induce contractions.
I mean I’m sure when I’m older I’ll have my baby in a hospital but in my opinion if my ancestor’s have been popping out babies the natural way, why change? Both of my grandmas had 10 kids each and they survived! Though they probably wish they took some kind of birth control…

At the hospital I worked at as a student, the “birth orders” as they call it (when a mother brings in a list of things she wants/doesn’t want done during labor; ex: no medications, certain positions [birthing ball]), the nurses and doctors were very condescending and irritated. Of course, they did not state these attitudes to the patients and they were still friendly, but the biases were still there. I think it is important to pick a hospital that has doctors and nurses that are PRO- these birth orders. I know there are hospitals in my community that have midwives working alongside the physicians (the hospital I worked at was not one of those).
Also, women are allowed to only eat ice chips because of the risk of complications and ultimate C-section– the stomach must be empty or anesthesia can cause nausea –> vomiting and then aspiration (choking).

Homebirth is a beautiful choice…I am a lactation educator (among MANY other things and roles I have in life) and I think that birthing naturally, in whatever surrounding can help to facilitate that for the mother/baby dyad, is a great goal!

Birth is about you and your baby..do whatever YOU feel is right when that magical moment arrives in your life.

I only have one child and her birth was beautiful, 100% natural, I nursed her for 3 years, and believe in the power of our bodies. I am so grateful for the experiences I have had as a mother and know that not all women have these same experiences, options, and paths based on a variety of circumstances so in no way would I ever say that what I did is the “best” or “only” way. Just the way things unfolded for me.

I think it’s great that you’re open to thinking about all your options for when the time is right… 🙂

I have three children, all born in hospitals with midwives (no obs, we have that option here in Australia). All three were 100% natural. My first was pretty traumatic and had I not been in a hospital, I would have died from blood loss. My second and third were straight forward, easy deliveries (all three boys were over 10 pounds, my middle was almost 12) and I went home a few hours after giving birth. I’m a firm believer in birth choice as long as people are aware of all possibilities. Birth isn’t illness, so there is no need to spend great lengths of time in hospital after birth, but as someone who has been there, done that three times and has 100% faith in my body and it’s ability, I’d still birth in a hospital.

That said, the movie is excellent and anything that gives women the opportunity to discuss birth openly is a good thing.

Good luck when you get there! Parenting is an awesome journey, pregnancy/birth/breastfeeding/early years are just the beginning and people beat themselves up over the perfect birth, the perfect this, the perfect that. What works for you and your baby to ensure a safe, healthy delivery is a successful birth regardless of others opinions. Same with all parenting choices, each child is different, each experience is different.

I’m a NICU RN (neonatal intensive care) and have seen a few cases of home delivery gone wrong…one of the cases occurred where the baby wasn’t getting enough oxygen and came in basically brain dead (worse than dead because he’ll be in a coma-like state the rest of his life). Another one got an infection and the parents refused an IV for antibiotics and asked us to instead give the baby muscular injections (“shots”) every 6 hours (ouch!!!) I guess they didn’t care about the risk of infection from constant shots??

The thing about interventions in a hospital is that you have to look at the culture behind it. Does part of it stem from a doctor being on-call for hours on end? Sure. But another significant part of it that the movie doesn’t mention (although I’ve seen it just the one time) is that our culture is one that we will sue if anything at all goes wrong.

Take a look at the no-eating rule. Say hospitals routinely allowed women to eat/drink while in labor. Then when one case goes badly and a stat c-section is needed and the anesthesiologist does the epidural or general and the woman starts vomiting because of the medications. Aspirates the vomit into her lungs and she dies. The OB doc gets sued because he allowed her to eat.

The OB’s focus is getting the baby out and keeping the mother alive to save his butt from being sued. In this culture of being sued for much less than a baby, I can’t blame the OB docs too much because their careers and family’s financial stability are at stake. Why do you think that malpractice for OBs are among the highest, if not the highest premiums out of any other medical field?

That being said, mothers are under a lot of pressure during the birth and most of them, as the movie said, have no idea about birthing (which is pretty darn sad). If women were better educated, they could choose the battlefield more wisely and ask to delay the pitocin for a bit. Labor at home longer. the list goes on and on.

Personally, I’m not against home births or birthing centers in general. I could never do that because I’ve seen too many times what can go wrong with the worst results…plus I’m not the kind of person to stay in pain willingly. Give me the epidural!!

Anyone’s thoughts on elective c-sections? Did a paper on it in nursing school a few years back…I’m mostly okay with it as long as the kid is at least 39 weeks along (worry about the lungs and the possibility of having the dates off). I wouldn’t want to force a mother to have a vaginal delivery.

I gave birth in the hospital with my daughter, but I would totally do it at home next time – the rules and limitations within the hospital bothered me…I felt like a child rather than an adult i.e. I wanted a TV in the room during labour because it calms me down but I was not allowed; I wanted to walk around while in labour but wasn’t allowed
I live in Ontario where women can choose to give birth with an OB or a midwife (both are fully covered by provincial health care- yay universal health care!) and midwives can attend at home births. I was apprenticing as a midwife for awhile, and thought you’d enjoy this link to a research study one of my professors did – she studied the outcomes of midwife-attended home births for a period of 5 years, and during that time, there was no difference in outcomes for neonate death (of the 1001 women who started out giving birth at home, one baby died after the woman was transferred to the hospital during labour and one died at home). Just a piece of info in case anyone tells you that giving birth at home is more dangerous – it’s not! Here’s the link:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-536X.1991.tb00047.x/abstract

Oooh, this is a big topic! My mum had me in hospital because she’d never heard of home births at that stage, and being her first child, I think she would have been too scared to try it. Healthwise, nothing went wrong, but she felt like a lump of meat (her words) and didn’t enjoy the experience at all.

When my little brother was coming along, she heard from someone else about home births. Our doctor wasn’t keen on the idea, so she switched to a different doctor who had plenty of experience with home births. He felt that there was no problem (as she’d had no probs with me, she had good pregnancies and she was not high risk)so she had my brother and all my other siblings at home (4 in total). She preferred being at home: having us all there afterwards, and just being able to have a cup of tea in her bed with her new baby.

With regards complications, the only problem she ever had was with my sister who had the cord around her neck, but the midwives were very experienced and took care of it.

I think it’s worth noting that just because you have a home birth it doesn’t mean that you’ll necessarily have a good experience with the midwives. For two of my mum’s home births she had midwives who acted like they were inconvenienced by the whole thing. But my mum found it easy to ignore them in the comfort of her own home.

Personally, I’d have my first in a hospital. I don’t know what MY birth experience would be like, nor how safe it would be, and as it’s a complete unknown, I think I’d feel safer in a hospital. After that, it would depend on the first experience. I’m open to home births (they’re kinda normal to me after my mum!)

But that’s all way off … I have to find me a babydaddy first! 😀

I think everyone who is planning or hoping to be a parent should see that movie, at least for the sake of being aware of birthing practices and trends in the U.S. So interesting!

I had to chime in here. All 3 of my births were planned homebirths. I researched, prayed, prepared and had wonderful EMPOWERING experiences. I loved it. That being said. I’m so greatful we all have options. While home birth may not be for everyone, it is a perfectly sound and reasonable way for a healthy (read not high risk) woman to have her baby.

As an anesthesia provider, please check out this webpage dedicated to patient knowledge, from the American Society of Anesthesiologists. http://www.lifelinetomodernmedicine.com/Types-Of-Anesthesia/Anesthesia-for-Labor-and-Delivery.aspx
It is much more accurate than a google search or what other bloggers may be saying.

My review on this movie is here http://www.mamanotes.com/2010/07/business-of-being-born-my-thoughts.html

I have a drug free natural hospital birth with both my babies. I would love a home birth next time, I just need to convince my hubby 😉

Very interesting documentary! I have not had a baby (yet) but several of my friends have. One of my friends was very much in favor of having a doula and/or midwife during her delivery. Unfortunately, she developed gestational diabetes, and therefore was considered “high risk” (there are more potential delivery risks to mom and baby for a gestational diabetic), so she was told that she had to deliver in a hospital. So she saw a midwife and OB throughout her pregnancy. She actually found a hospital which was willing to let a midwife assist in the delivery, and if something went wrong, they only had to call her OB (or a OB in the hospital) to assist.
Out of curiosity, I just checked my insurance company’s website to see if a midwife is covered, and it is not even an option in selecting a practitioner for pregnancy & delivery!
Jen

I don’t think I’ll want a home birth but I do want (in an ideal world) a birth plan & natural birth. I had a developmental psychology class last year AND an infancy & toddler hood class this year and we talked about birth in both – convinced me not to use medication.

I think everyone should make their own decision but I also think a lot of women don’t inform themselves enough about this. A lot just listen to one doctor and do what he says. The first gynecologist my mother had when she was pregnant with my brother wanted to schedule her delivery with an induced delivery and she had to change her doctor!

Seeing as how I work in a hospital, the blood bank actually, I don’t think I could deliver at home. Knowing what I know and all the emergencies that have happened at work. But I certainly would never question why somebody would want a home birth. I think it’s rather empowering : )

I have had two children by c-section. Not elective…I was in labor and my son was in distress. If I had not been in a hospital both him and myself would not be here. I’m all for choices and exploring your options. When I see a homebirth…all I can think about is my situation and it could happen to anyone. A healthy baby and mommy is the most important thing.

This is such an interesting discussion and it’s so great to hear from people with such wide-ranging opinions and experiences. I am becoming more interested in birthing stories and learning about delivery options because I found out that I would have to have heart surgery to repair my aorta and a heart valve (a congenital defect) before having kids in the next 3-5 years. This puts a totally different spin on what I’d like to have vs. what I might actually have to have, i.e. a vaginal, natural birth vs. a c-section to prevent strain on the heart.

It’s really interesting and I’m trying not to think about it TOO much at this point (because I’m not even engaged yet!), but I think the main thing is to prepare for the best and worst case scenarios, and try to be flexible for my and my baby’s health – like many people have mentioned. It helps that my mom is a nurse practitioner and my boyfriend’s stepmom is a doctor – so important to find medical professionals that you like and trust!

Wow what a great topic and how cool it is to see all the replies!
I wanted to chime in and offer my opinion, since I had a healthy and happy home birth myself, my first baby was born 12 weeks ago, on September 24th, 2010 🙂
There are positive things and negative things about home births just the same way there are positive and negative things about hospital births so I think it really comes down to each woman’s personal choice.
And regardless of where the birth happens, one must remain flexible – things don’t always happen the way you plan them and also, the day of the birth, you might even change your mind about certain things you were absolutely firm about. I know I did! 🙂
Things I liked about my home birth: I was able to be in a familiar and quiet environment, I was able to labor the way I chose (in a birthing pool – soooo good!), using the relaxation techniques that I chose (Hypnobirthing!!! worked SO WELL for me! I suggest you look into it if you are interested in all things birth – it’s really interesting, not for everybody but interesting nonetheless:)
I had midwives I was familiar with taking care of me…
The whole time I was quietly going through contractions, requesting that people shut up when I did – I was concentrating on them and the quiet was helping, hee hee Contractions were just like bad menstrual cramps and I knew they were only 1.5 minutes long, so I would say to myself, just a minute and a half and then you get a break… 🙂
Once baby was born, I was home! That part was awesome. Our boy was born at 6h19pm, so at around 9pm our little family was comfortable and at home, staring into each others eyes realizing that OMG there was a birth in this house just a few hours ago, woah! 🙂
We were lucky enough to live right by a hospital so I knew that if anything happened we could quickly go there…
There were minor unexpected things like the baby coming out with a hand behind his head – but I didn’t even tear!! I was so afraid of that:)
Anyways, I just wanted to say that I had a great experience, O have the most beautiful, healthy and happy boy in the world and I would do it the same way again for sure!

I have to agree with another comment. While I like the idea of a home birth, I just don’t think I could do it.

i love all the comments on this, such an interesting topic. I love the way you always bring up topics in a neutral way so everyone feels comfortable expressing their opinion.

I love The Business of Being Born! I’m so into home birth it’s ridiculous.