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WONDERFUL!!! There should be no worries whatsoever if you have a straight forward pregnancy. No one want to take a risk (including midwives) so if they say its fine, you are good to go. Google Ina May Gakin or better, order any book she has about home birth. I can not tell you how great her books are and how inspiring and empowering the stories in them are. I am pregnant with # 3 and will have him/her at home, I had # 2 at home and would never ever do it otherwise unless I had a breech, early delivery or some other obvious risk. The more you read, the more you get in touch with other home birth moms, the more you educate yourself on your body, labor etc and the safety of home birth the stronger you will be! Good luck!!!

This is a quote from this website under homebirths: "Even the World Health Organization has said that there is no proof that hospital births are safer than home births in the developed world. Most of the research on home births in the developed world has found that infant and maternal mortality rates are the same, if not better, than hospital rates. There is also less chance of a woman having a cesarean, induced labor, or of a midwife needing to use forceps."

Hi Franny, thankyou so much for you input. The more I read, the more appealing a home birth is. I live in Australia & there are quite a few midwives in my area that do home births, but unfortunately the cost is the only thing that is putting me off, as it is quite expensive. I loved getting the chance to birth the way I wanted to in the birth centre, & it really is such an empowering feeling to know you gave birth on your own, especially as ds was 9lb 3oz & I am only pet_te. Unfortunately I didn't get in this time as there are limited spaces & as sooooo many women are realising how much better & safer a natural birth can be, all the spaces are taken. I absolutely dread having another hospital birth like I did with my 1st (dd), as I was made to feel I needed drugs to cope & then when I did give in & have the pethidine it put her to sleep & caused a whole heap of problems. Was your older child there & if so how did you cope? Did you have a birthing pool?

Just read on the Third Trimester first page of posts and ALL 7, YES THAT'S 100% of all the birth stories (which were all in hospitals) were intervened with picotin and epidurals. This is such a clear sign that when birthing in any hospital your chance of having man, medicine and machine take over sky rockets! And they talk about the risks of home births.....

Why is it a risk if nothing derogatory or bad comes of it?

"No one wants to take a risk so if they say its fine then you are good to go", but yet if there is a risk THEN the hospital is ok and worthy to deliver? Maybe it's because of the fact that in a HOME delivery you could risk losing a child if there are serious complications and you don't have the medical personnel to INTERVENE appropriately. Good for you for doing what you want to do and being so pa__sionate about doing it but don't think for a SECOND that you are better than anyone of those woman in the Third Tri board that delivered in a hospital with some sort of "intervening" as you call it. I will guaranty that if you did a year long study of completely un-intervened pregnancies and home births and pregnancies that medically monitored and intervened if needed...the fetus mortility rate would be FAR lower in the hospital

I think Franny was being sarcastic as most people think giving birth at home is as risky as needle sharing. That was also sarcastic : )

Here in Australia for those that don't earn heaps or don't have health insurance, we are VERY lucky to be covered by a public health care system that provides free (or relatively cheap) medical care, including GP visits & hospital care. Granted if you don't have health insurance & need an operation (other than an emergency) you go on a waiting list, but when it comes to having babies they provide free care, including all drugs & interventions that might be needed (or wanted). That said home births are unfortunately not included in the free services provided & are only mostly covered if you have health insurance (which at the moment we don't) & to hire a midwife for a HB costs between $3000 - $4500.

I had my first midwife appointment yesterday (through the hospital) & even she agreed that in all her years of nursing & midwifery that it is NO safer to birth in a hospital then it is at home. If anything she said that too many women are not informed enough about how our bodies work during labour, so automatically fear birth & choose drugs to cope which lead to interventions & often unnecessary c-sections. I have friends in the medical field (or still studying) & I find it surprising that they all are programmed to believe that women somehow need doctors to tell them how & when to have their babies. No wonder women feel soooooooooo disempowered (hope that's a word) to birth on their own, when even their trusted doctors don't believe they can.

May08 take a chill pill!!! Just do some research yourself, some stats on home birth AND hospital birth. You ARE WRONG, with your stats, look at the World Heath Organization stats comparing home birth to hospital. No one is saying anything about being better or worse, you sound really wound up for some reason...good luck!

May08 look at the quote Franny posted the 3rd post down from the WHO, which comes from this website! That says it all. Do some research like call a few local hospitals and ask their rates of c-sections, and drug-free birth, then call your local midwife and ask how many hospital transports result in c-sections and other forms of intervention. You will most likely find that home births have about 5% of hospital transports and hospitals themselves have about a 60% or greater rate of intervened births. I know you will snap when I say this, but just look at the last 20 or so birth stories on this Third Trimester forum....after you do, I would be interested in what you think about it.

May08, I have been there on BOTH sides. My 1st was born in a hospital. I was ignorant, I had no idea what the human, physical process was. I believed that the pain f birth was was unbearable, and that I needed doctors to tell me what to do and when to do it. I took all their (stupid) advice, I submitted myself to one intervention which LEAD TO A STRING OF OTHERS. Yes, look at the last 10 or so birth stories here, one leads to another!!! A simple fact. I had such a degrading experience, the drugs left me hollow, I was depressed and had so much trouble b___st feeding that I gave it up. When I was pregnant again I thought THERE MUST BE ANOTHER WAY TO BIRTHING. So I did a lot of research! I read forums, internet, books, books, books. I spoke with midwives and other moms who did home births and I thought, THIS IS THE WAY ITS SUPPOSE TO BE and has been for millions of years. So number 2 was born at home and it was absolutely perfect. I had to learn the hard way, and I think that is normal for 1st time mothers. We are told over and over to believe it is too painful to do by ourselves and that we need picotin to speed it up and an epidural to slow it down and relax and get rid of the pain. I find this so sad as birthing is one of the most powerful things a women can do all by herself and yet, so very very few do it. Please do your reading on the physical process of birthing and how drugs interfere negatively with us and our babies. Anyway, I hope you are open to all this.

The stats which say home birth are as safe as hospital birth are for low risk pregnancies. If you have a low risk pregnancy with no complications and can get to a hospital quickly its safe enough. If you have complications or a high risk pregnancy the stats show high death rates of babies - around 8 times the hospital rate in the study I saw. Its rare to have complications in a pregnancy deemed safe for home birth - about 10 to 15 are transferred from what I saw - and most home births go fine and women love them. I don't think it is responsible however for home birth sites (as in the UK) to tell women they do not condone giving birth home alone and give birth stories of these or that they should have a high risk pregnancy at home because the stats for these are very bad. A planned low risk home birth with midwives - which I'm sure is what E586467 is planning is fine - and is all that would be allowed here - high risk ones are cancelled - is safe enough. My choice would always be a water birth at a birthing centre because of the risk that something goes wrong in a home birth and the delay of getting to hospital - its a small risk but it happened to someone I know and left the child severely brain damaged as a direct result of her choice of home birth (doctors and her agree). I think many women choose not to experience pain during labour as they don't like pain - its not a matter of not feeling empowered. As far as I am concerned they have a right to choose and should be respected, not abused, for that. It is very sad when people have just given birth that other people cannot just say congratulations.

You made some good points Justine, but paralyzing yourself from the waist down--which in turn raises your chance of needing a c-section or vacuum birth to about 60% all in the name of not wanting to feel pain--is not SAFE at all! C-section is a major operation which in itself carries great risk to mother and child, let alone getting an infection. I think the main point in these pro home birth posts is that a hospital birth will in almost 7 out of 10 cases lead to some kind of intervention which is a RISK to a child. Did you know that an epidural, CAUSES the fetal heart rate to lower! It makes sense when you consider the drug you are pumped up with. Picotin and the like, naturally cause the heart rate to go up. So when you get both of these done you can imagine the DISTRESS you cause a child in the birthing process....so no wonder there is that last minute rush to get baby out. Then the doctors convince the moms that THANK GOD YOU WERE IN A HOPSPITAL so we could intervene and safe your baby! When all along it was unnecessary.

Never thought about it that way lunamoo, but your last bit made a lot of sense! I agree! The problem in hospitals is that so so so often they have a limit on a time a mom can labor, be it 6, 8 10 hours. Then if nothing is progressing --which is normal!!!-- than they slam you with all these procedures to "get things going." If you read about birthing, the process can take hours, days! Labor can come and go, but hospitals are on a stop watch so this ain't going happen there.

So I just did it, googled "Ina Gaskin Farm Statistics" and this is what I got: The statistics for the Farm, but done in 2000. So of 2028 births only 1.4% ended in c-section which is 28. If you apply the same original number of births to the current near 30% c-section rate in the USA, that would be 608 c-sections! Oh if you read further, the first c-section came after 220 births and was because the baby was lying transverse. The midwives knew this and hoped the baby would turn, when they saw he didn't they went to hospital and a healthy baby was delivered via c-section...