20% More American Women Chose to Birth at Home

Born at home.

What a peaceful feeling we get from hearing these words.

According to Birth Issues and Prenatal Care Journal, we see the reversal of the long downturn of the home birth trend. It has been emphasized in the research by the National Study for Health Statistics that the majority of home births is driven by women who are highly educated, are in excellent pre-natal health, mostly white and married, and are in the category of what is medically terme as low-risk.

For some of those women home birth is a second birth, and mostly preceded by a "bad" experience with a hospital birth the first time around.

Marian Declercq, author of the study, said that while this study was conducted by analyzing birth records, not through interviews, a previous study found that the top three reasons women gave for choosing home birth were:

1. Safety.
2. Avoidance of unnecessary medical interventions common in hospital births.
3. Previous negative hospital experience.

Safety ! WOW! that tell you a lot. If those who choose home birth choose it for safety....... How safe do you think is a hospital? Not safe at all....

Tina Cassidy, a Boston Journalist, who mentions research on the birth of Jackie Kennedy's children through her 4 scheduled C-sections in her encompassing book Birth: The Surprising Story of How We Are Born, writes about her own birthing experience: “I was more comfortable, and felt safer there, than in a hospital,” she said. “The research shows home births are safer for low-risk women but doctors can’t seem to get that through their thick heads.”