Today when I was catching up on the blog for my hosting company, I came across a post that the owner made several days ago. Josh writes about the horrible tragedy that he and his wife experienced last year. They lost their 11-hour-old son due to risks taken by having a home-birth. As a father, it cripples me to think of losing my son. Just this morning, he was down stairs jabbering away, “talking” to my wife as she made the morning coffee. Instead of going through the living room to get to the kitchen, as I normally do, I decided to go through the dining room to surprise my little boy. When I turned the corner, and he saw me, the look on his face melted my heart – it is unspeakably wonderful to know that this little boy loves me so much… and to think that I wouldn’t have that; that I wouldn’t see his smile and hear his voice, it makes me want to scream out loud.
I have an old friend who is very upset about the way her birth went. She gave birth in a hospital and feels that the doctors were too willing to do an episiotomy and that the epidural has given her back problems. She is very vocal about her feelings and is constantly posting links to information for “natural” at home births via midwifery. I have always been a bit skeptical of this (no surprise there, I am usually skeptical until I have done my research). The sites that I have read in favor of home births always smack of a mix between homeopathy and conspiracy theorists. Their main focus always seems to be that home births are more natural, but why is this good? Yes, women have given birth in their cave/hut/house/field for millions of years, but they also had infant mortality rates in the neighborhood of 50% as opposed to 0.46% (UK) 0.68% (US) in modern times via modern medicine. I am all for using the goods that nature has provided us, but only when they are actually good for us. When we have engineered and developed better ways to perform the functions of life, let’s use them! It is a byproduct of evolution that women give birth through their vagina, right next to excretory orifices. There are risks associated with birth, but we can mitigate them and that mitigation begins with giving birth under the care of a properly trained, qualified, and tested medical professional in a clean, well-equipped hospital.
Josh mentions in his article that,
“It may seem harmless, but the problem with the whole culture of home birth though is its intense focus on the process of childbirth rather than the result. I wish I could somehow get everybody laser focused on the most important, nay, the only important thing in childbirth. Getting a healthy baby out of a healthy mommy. I wish I could impart this to people without them having to go through what we’ve been through.”
Read more about people that were hurt by home birth. Read Josh’s final words on the matter at the site that he dedicated to his son. I can only empathize with him and hold my son a little tighter.
