Home Birth in a Historical Context, and Where We Find Ourselves Today

Birth has taken place at home since time immemorial. It wasn’t until the first half of the 20th century that it began to move into the hospital under the governance of predominantly male doctors, and away from the traditional guardianship of midwives.

Maternity care was the last aspect of health care to be co-opted by the medical establishment. Suppression of midwifery as a profession became ubiquitous as hospital birth (and the money to be made in it) was popularized.

By choosing to birth outside of the hospital, you are taking part in an age-old tradition; a truly time-tested model.

Should unusual circumstances arise calling for medical intervention, this midwife sees the option for transport to a hospital as a blessing, when care under a physician is indicated or desired by birthing parents.

It is for each person to decide where they feel safest and most comfortable. What I believe is most important is for there to be options, so that folks can choose whatever is right for themselves.

What has happened though, as straightforward pregnancies and low-risk births have more and more routinely been put through the mill of a system which pathologizes this natural part of the life-cycle, is that we have lost touch with the uniqueness of each person’s birth story, forgetting how wide the range of “normal” can be.

The result of medical care becoming industrialized, moving closer and closer to a factory model, is that birth has become increasingly homogenized. Birthing in highly medicalized, mechanized, and technological settings makes having an undisturbed birth next to impossible. It dehumanizes the most uniquely human thing we do, which is to make more humans.

We can too easily forget that the birthing person is the power behind the process— a wound visible everywhere we see women feeling sidelined in their health care, divorced from a sense of agency, and filled with self-doubt.

Good midwifery care doesn’t just protect the physical aspects of healthy birth; it also centers the importance of the emotional and psychosocial experience for birthing people. The impacts of this can’t be overstated when it comes to the long-term mental health of a mother, and, by the nature of her central role in it, the well-being of her whole family.