Does this sound familiar? It is a scenario played out on the TV everyday. For many it is the only glimpse into birth that they experience until their own children are born. Unfortunately this in no way reflects what the actual act of birth is like. We perceive birth as being fast and dangerous because we subconsciously believe the only thing we have ever been told. In real life birth is a gradual, arduous, spiritual, journey that is moving beyond all other experiences-but it is rarely dramatic, not 'Hollywood' dramatic anyway. Our beliefs about birth are limited to that which we see in our daily lives. We believe that hospital birth is safe and that doctors routinely save the day. We believe that all women need this setting to birth. We believe that women need drugs to handle birth. We believe that intervention by the medical profession is necessary. We believe that these drugs and interventions have no side effects on the mother or baby because mention of this is conspicuously missing. What we believe, via the Hollywood version of birth, is false.

A woman who gives birth utilizing her strength and the strength of those who surround her, with no intervention into the process, is giving birth naturally. Not all women can give birth this way. Those who are truly high risk may not be able to deliver naturally (high risk does NOT include multiples, breech, older mothers, first time moms or VBAC). For these women obstetricians are a godsend. Doctors who will facilitate a birth that may not have been possible without intervention are definitely a necessity. However while 10% of expecting mothers are high risk the remaining 90% are in fact low risk.

This 90% of low-risk woman have the potential to birth at home in a safe environment without need for highly medicalized intervention and out of harms way. Women who deliver in hospitals are 3 times more likely to have a c-section, 22 times more likely to have forceps used, and 9 times more likely to have substantial vaginal tearing. Many routine procedures are preformed in a hospital as a matter of course. Among these are amniotomy (breaking of the amniotic sac), episiotomy (the cutting of a mothers perineum), Electronic Fetal Monitoring (EFM). Each has their own distinct down falls. Amniotomy can lead to compression or prolapse of the cord and to stronger contractions leading to maternal and fetal distress. Episiotomy is not only painful and destructive but often necessitates future episiotomies. The number of episiotomies preformed in hospitals is horrifying. With proper positioning, perinial massage and giving the perineum time to stretch MOST episiotomies can be avoided. EFM a device used to detect fetal distress has been shown to cause the exact thing that it claims to reveal, as well as being known to give notoriously high numbers of false-positive readings and being proven not to improve the outcome of delivery.

Hospitals also may have blanket policies in effect that hamper women’s efforts all in the name of the "just in case" situation. For example food and water are often not permitted in the eventuality of a cesarean section. Women need energy to birth, without it they are often doomed to be diagnosed with failure-to-progress. Failure-to-progress one of the number one reason woman is said to require c-section. This is typical of hospital intervention. Too often when and intervention is required to supposedly lessen the chance of a certain situation arising, the original intervention actually causes the same problem it was purport to prevent. There are so many obstacles that birthing mothers must avoid that delivering naturally in a hospital may become further out of reach with every passing minute. In fact in the largest comparative cohort study done on the safety of planned midwife assisted homebirth, the assisted delivery rates (caesarian section, vacuum extractor, and forceps) in the hospital delivery group was 26.6% while in the midwife-assisted group it was 2.21%. (Including mothers transferred from home to hospital). There is such a huge disparity in-between these two groups, one would have to ask themselves why.

Is it really practical to be having babies in an environment that is not conducive to stress free birth simply to avoid one tragedy in many? Especially when it has been shown that perinatal mortality does not increase even in the event of a transfer to a hospital. This means that even if the baby had to be transferred to the hospital after birth there would be no decrease in her chance of survival. Does it make any more sense to deliver babies in a hospital which is increases the likely hood of fetal and maternal stress, despite the fact that it causes increase overall neonatal mortality?

Woman need very little to birth a child. A comfortable, familiar surrounding loving support, faith in her body and little else. It is almost always an intrusion into the process that muddles a natural birth attempt. It is definitely possible to have a natural birth in a hospital, but considering the number of obstacles a laboring woman must face it is unlikely. I was told recently that it is just common sense that a baby is safer if born in the hospital. Is it really common sense? Does it make sense that doctors routinely tell women to ignore their natural instincts? Does it make sense to bring a baby into an incredibly infectious setting? Does it make sense that a woman is going to remain calm in unfamiliar surrounding with unfamiliar people? Common sense is a set of beliefs based on reality as we see it. If women are raised watching women on the TV scream at the top of their lungs" I want my epidural!". If they read books about pregnancy that are filled with talk of drugs and complication and are subjected to countless horror stories about the pain and misgivings of birth; these women are going to learn to mistrust their bodies and fear birth. If one is raised in a culture where birth is revered, understood and not feared, one will see it as an everyday natural event that necessitates nothing but support, understanding and a helping hand. My common sense tells me that low-risk mothers belong at home to bear their children.