Home Birth versus Hospital Birth

For many women, the more they learn about hospital birth the more likely they are to opt for home birth. They prefer the idea of having their deliveries attended, not in a clinical setting surrounded by five or six strangers and a confusing array of electronic instrumentation, but in a setting of quiet support, surrounded by the father, a midwife, and minimal medical apparatus. What is important about making the choice, however, is to make it on a fully informed basis.

Home birth is the term assigned to the belief that "all parents should have a choice concerning were their children are born" (Brooks, 1976, p. 143). That choice may involve delivery in the parents' actual home or in a so-called birth center designed for the purpose, which is to be specifically distinguished from the traditional hospital clinical setting, with its myriad disruptions and institutional protocols (Stewart, 1998g).

A home birth presumes that pregnancy and childbirth are naturally occurring conditions and, moreover, that there are no known or even hinted-at obstetrical complications or abnormalities that require specialized medical care at the time of delivery (Brook, 1976). What it does not presume is that a normal pregnancy is an illness that is meant to be cured. That being so, home birth or delivery at a birthing center offers parents access -- but not subjection -- to trained staff as needed (Dick-Read, 1985). Accordingly, obstetricians are rout

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of institutions far removed from the clinic, patient preferences are overlooked, and the patients have to pay for the privilege of being overwhelmed by policy; meanwhile, whether the quality of clinical care is adequate has come increasingly in doubt over the last 30 years (Sousa, 1976). Disadvantages of home birth surface where there is significant evidence of an abnormal or at-risk pregnancy, hence a greater likelihood of a need for clinical intervention at some key stage of the process. Prenatal care should reveal breech births, bleeder births (new blood is available at hospitals but not in the home), or prolapses, in which case home birth would be contraindicated (Brew, 1976). Hospital Births, Pro and Con The ready availability of staffed expertise at a hospital is the most obvious advantage associated with childbirth in a clinical setting (Miller, 1969). Trained obstetrics staff can respond much more quickly to the unexpected than can a typical midwife, even one trained as a nurse practitioner. Some research has shown that hospitals are the best for some (i.e., at-risk) mothers and babies (Stewart, 1998g). Despite assertions by hospital advocates that hospitals are the safest childbirth option, the weight of statistical e

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