13 Reasons I’m Choosing a Home Birth

In Why I’m Choosing a Home Birth, I mentioned that I made a list of why. That list was originally only supposed to have 3 reasons, maybe 5 at the most. But as I started to list each reason, the list grew. Here are the 13 Reasons I’m Choosing a Home birth

*In the picture, I think I was about 34 weeks. It was before the baby had his last growth spurt. More pics on my Instagram.

1. It’s one of the best ways to prevent a repeat c-section. I live in Las Vegas, few doctors and hospitals are qualified to do or encourage VBAC (Vaginal Birth after C-Sections).

2. I just have this gut feeling that if I go with the traditional hospital route, I will end up with a repeat c-section which ultimately lead me to pursuing a midwife for pre-natal care.

3. There are no birthing centers in the state of Nevada.

4. I want to be free to move around. When I had my son, I was attached to an IV, external monitor and then internal monitor and this was early in labor which was very restricting and annoying! You can be monitored without being tied to a bed.

5. I would still receive the same amount of fetal monitoring that I would at a hospital whether its continuous or intermittent. This is something that I was really concerned about because I had a previous c-section.

6. I wanna be in my own space. Hospitals are kinda scary to me. And from my experience the hospital staff can be impersonal. The nurses in my last birth were borderline rude which is me being nice. I wrote about this in 3 Ways To Make Peace With Your Birth Story.

7. I want to be able to eat if I’m feeling up to it especially during early labor… Labor takes hours and you wouldn’t run a marathon on an empty stomach; labor isn’t any different.

8. The hospital is always there as a back-up. Luckily, the hospitals aren’t going anywhere just because I chose a home birth. My midwife is very experienced but also has some of the best OBs on-call in the event that they are needed or that I need to be transported to a hospital.

9. My midwife is certified to do newborn check-ups including administer Hep-B Vaccine, Vitamin K, and perform PKU testing. We won’t have to rush out to the pediatrician the next day. My midwife will come back the next day to check on both of us.

10. Its cheaper… I’m paying a flat rate of about $2000 for pre-natal care and delivery with the midwife practice. And I was surprised but our health insurance DOES cover midwife service, but at a higher deductible of $3,000. But with my insurance, we had to deal with the fact that our deductible resets annually. Although, we started paying towards our deductible last year for pre-natal care, it would not count toward our 2015 deductible. In addition to that cost there are fees outside of your deductible such as the physician’s costs and whatever the percentage of the hospital fees that you’re expected to cover.

11. There is less pressure or temptation to ask for drugs. I told one of my friends if you want to stay away from the drugs, don’t go where the drugs are…

12. The risk of unnecessary medical intervention is eliminated. Midwives specialize in natural childbirth in low risk mothers, they are not surgeons. They don’t perform assisted births.

13.If I have any questions or concerns, I can just call or text my midwife.