Home Birthers Have Every Right to Be Proud of Their Accomplishment

Homebirthers are proud because they have done what they feel is best for their child. Unlike many women who chose by default to birth in a hospital, these women have spent months studying, researching, and preparing for the ordeal of childbirth--doing much more than attending Lamaze classes. Rather than place their faith in doctors, they have placed it in nature, the skilled hands of a midwife, and their own abilities. They have undergone a tremendous amount of pain which takes an enormous amount of willpower and an intense amount of self-discipline to endure without medication. They did not give in and cry for an epidural, because they know the epidural would do harm to their child. They did not allow interventions to speed up the labor to satisfy their impatience or to please a doctor. They birthed in the way that felt natural to them rather than obeying a doctor's orders. They went against the medical community and the accepted norms of society, delving into what is considered taboo by some, which requires quite a bit of courage and commitment.

The reason that homebirthers also boast about their birth experience while 'hospital birthers' tend only to boast about their baby is because they have done something for which they are proud and had an experience that touched them very deeply, made them feel closer to themselves, to nature, and to their loved ones, and gave them a sense of enlightenment. This is true of any woman who gives birth but those who have done it both ways definitely feel more empowered by their homebirth. Motherhood should invoke pride in the heart of every woman for having brought a life into the world and nurtured it. Homebirth, however, invokes pride not just in being a mother, not just for bringing a life into the world and caring for it, but for doing what they know is best for their infant despite the pain and social backlash they were up against. Birthing is always an accomplishment, but homebirthing is one of a very different nature.

I once saw a doctor write about a mother homebirthing a 9lb90z baby, attributing that feat to an ample pelvis and depriving the mother of any credit whatsoever for the achivement. It is disappointing that a practicing obstetrician believes that a woman's ability to birth a 9lb9oz baby is the result of her pelvis being wide, rather than her own ingenuity, resourcefulness, willpower, intuition, intelligence, or the care of her attendants. Women of very petite stature with tiny pelvises manage everyday to give birth to infants over 9lbs. A woman's ability to birth a large baby depends not on the width of her pelvis, which naturally expands to expel an infant, but on the care she is receiving, the strength within her, and even what position in which she choses to birth.

One could easily chose to have a C-section to avoid the long, strenuous labor, possible tearing, and creative birth positioning that one might have to undergo to birth any child, particularly a heavy one. That, however, would pose a much higher risk to both mother, child, and future babies than gritting one's teeth and bearing down. A doctor's negative attitude towards those who manage to birth without pain medication or deliver a larger baby adds to the danger of birthing in a hospital. It is difficult for woman birth well in an environment where the doctor has such a negative opinion of women's abilities and seems to credit good outcomes solely to chance, medical intervention, and the shape of a woman's pelvis.

Birth is a personal choice, and I respect a woman's decision as well as her right to make up her own mind. A woman is no less of a mother for birthing in a hospital, either for personal reasons, the belief it is safer, or because she was considered high risk, nor is a gal any less of a super mom for accepting an epidural if she sides with those who do not believe they are dangerous. We all have the right to chose for ourselves what is true about birth, based on what we have read, heard, and come up with in our own minds. Mothers are all super and should all take pride in motherhood. When everyone on every side of every debate of the 'mommy wars' realizes that, the world will be a much better place for families and especially mommies.