The Fundamental Truth That Sparks Women to Explore Home Birth

I work in healthcare as a registered nurse, and I have been asked multiple times what made me switch from my medical mindset to planning home births with both of my kiddos. "You work in the hospital—you see emergencies happen regularly. Wouldn't you want to be at the hospital just in case something bad happens?" Keep reading to uncover the forgotten, yet fundamental truth about birth that will explain why women consider homebirth.

If you're interested in snagging my Birth Myth Busting Guide click HERE to have it sent to your inbox. This free guide is packed with info that so many pregnant mothers need to hear. There is a lot of outdated, FALSE info floating around. Don't let these lies shape your experience. Take charge and educate yourself- you're worth it!

It's quite common to be looked at like you have 3 heads when you tell someone that you plan to give birth at home. For the majority of our culture, the thought of birthing at home doesn’t even register. It’s foreign & often looked at as dangerous, selfish, or irresponsible of those who chose it. Choosing to birth at home with a midwife or birth attendant seemed bizarre to me at a point in my life as well. Before nursing school, I honestly never thought about the fact that women (up until about 100 years ago) gave birth at home. I never pictured myself birthing anywhere else but in a hospital. If this is you, I encourage you to keep reading!

• When my OB/GYN professor blew my mind

When I was in nursing school my OB/GYN nursing professor introduced us to the concept of midwifery care and home birth as a feasible, safe option for birthing mothers. I didn’t even know midwifery was a thing. I thought home birth was illegal. This was one of the biggest "Aha" moments for me as we delved into what physiological, unmedicated birth in the home environment could look like. Before nursing school & medical school, students must take “Introduction to Physiology” which provides a basic understanding of the body & how each system works when the body is well. After this course is passed, nursing school begins & the whole focus is to learn & understand pathophysiology- which is what the body looks like when it is unwell, imbalanced, or diseased. Then we learn how these processes are diagnosed & medically managed.

Labor and birth are physiologic, meaning they are normal processes that occur within the body for a specific outcome. The body is biologically programmed to do this without assistance. The hormones, muscles and altered brain wave states that occur during labor are all purposely present to facilitate. Though birth can be intense, it is an effective and functional bodily process, similar to the digestion and elimination of food/ waste, sweating, or regenerating skin cells. Normal, yet complex and amazing.

I sincerely thank God for my professor who made the distinction that birth is not an imbalance or a disease that needs to be medically managed- MOST of the time. 

It’s interesting how much fear we have rooted within our society about the “birthing” part of the whole process. It's like we've made birth the part where all of a sudden our bodies forget what they are doing and our physiology falls short. In general, we are intrinsically designed with all we need for this portion just as we are for conception and gestation.

• A question to ask yourself

So, for someone who has never considered that birthing outside of the medical system is a safe valid option…I ask you to sit and ponder it. Try to reconnect with the fact that for thousands of years, women grew, birthed, and fed their babies with no medical monitoring or management. When left undisturbed, birth will generally unfold just as God intended. He is brilliant and makes human bodies capable. He wanted human beings on this planet...why would He make the women who grow, feed & cherish these babies incapable of birthing them without external interventions?

The Fundamental Truth:   women are and always have been intuitively & biologically capable of birthing their babies. The existing human race serves as evidence of this truth.

To grab my Birth Myth Busting Guide click HERE to have it sent to your inbox!

With love,

Elaina