Homebirth - Trendy & Fashionable?! Or Response to Bigger Problem

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recently issued a statement where they said that more women are choosing birth at home with midwives because it is "trendy" and "fashionable".

I do believe they are missing the point. That is NOT the reason educated women are choosing to birth at home.

Dr. Katie Prown (Campaign manager for The Big Push for Midwives 2008) responded by saying, "It will certainly come as news to the Amish and other groups in this country who have long chosen homebirth that they're simply being 'trendy' or 'fashionable.'"

And another young Mom in our group here in Virginia Beach was surprised by the ACOG statement. She explained,

"Who said that homebirth was trendy?

I would love to refute that!

While I'm glad I had my homebirth, and now that I know how amazing it is, I would do it again even if I didn't feel I "had" to, the main and only reason that brought me to seek out homebirth was my lack of other options.

Home, or C-section.

Sorry, but I didn't want to have a csection. If anything I was being anti-trendy, because I didn't want a csection, and I wanted a natural birth. That is too funny that someone would say it is trendy to birth at home. (especially when my family members acted like I had three heads when I told them my plans!) I guess they are saying it because it is becoming more popular or because celebrities are doing it. But I think they have missed WHY people are doing homebirth. Thank God there are people out there smart enough to choose homebirth for their first child, and not just as a last resort. But sadly, as care gets worse and worse, it is for this reason more people are turning to it.

Happily, once turning to that choice, I think just about anyone would wonder why they hadn't started out there in the first place. I just wish I had known about homebirthing with my first baby."

Those are my sentiments as well. I can go into a hospital with a 95% chance of unnecessary interventions, a 45% chance of ultimately being cut open, and a 100% chance of not being allowed to move and eat and drink and labor and push as is best/most comfortable for me and baby. Or I can birth at home.