Why do People Like Hospital Birth More Than Home Birth?

why people have their babies in a hospital rather than having their baby at home?

Answer:

I think this is a great question, and I don't really know the answer.

I think a big part of it is that having babies at the hospital is "normal." Many women never give it a second thought because that's "just where babies are born." At least that's true in many cultures, including the US.

Other countries have higher rates of home birth, such as the Scandinavian countries and even the UK and Canada. It's more accepted and traditional in those countries.

Medical bodies in the US also actively advocate against home birth so women hear that home birth may be dangerous to themselves and their babies. They don't realize that home birth is safe - doctors and medical "authorities" want women to think that women who home birth are "crazy" and are taking risks with their baby's lives.

I think that a lot of women still also get a sense of security from the hospital - they feel more comfortable knowing that a "rescue" is right there should something go wrong with birth. Again, we have really been conditioned to expect things to go wrong with birth. So that hospital is a nice measure "just in case" (because really, most women are expecting something to go wrong while just hoping it doesn't).

Pain relief is another reason. Women are terrified of the pain of labor. They want it to be gone and they want baby-having to be pain free and easy. Only the hospital (in the US) offers this. Other countries can bring gas and air or TENS machines to home birth, but those are not common in the US. Water is also an effective form of pain relief, but most women don't realize that. They want to relieve pain and the hospital offers medication that "works" - or at least it's supposed to.

Sometimes a woman may want a home or birth center birth, but is pressured by her partner or family to have a hospital birth. This happens a lot to women desiring VBAC, even in the hospital. Partners or families pressure them about how "dangerous" home birth or VBACs are and how they would be a bad mother to take that risk.

Some women also cite cost as a factor - insurance companies (at least in the US) will pay for a huge portion of hospital birth. Home births and midwives are often paid out of the family's pockets. Some women say they just cannot afford this.

I won't judge any of the above reasons, I just list some of them as reasons why women continue to have babies in hospitals rather than at home.

The fact of the matter is, home birth IS safe and studies show it repeatedly. Women CAN give birth without drugs and intervention, as is proved every day, all over the world.

Our modern societies just don't (in general) support that. It's a real shame for women and babies, but that's the way it is.

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Why do People Like Hospital Birth More Than Home Birth?

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Mar 11, 2010
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starstarstarstarstar 		My hospital birth experience
by: Becky H.

I have two children and both were born in a hospital. The first, I was actually planning a home birth but at the start of my third trimester, I found out that our insurance would not help with any of the cost. We didn't have enough time or resources to come up with the 3 or 4 thousand that our midwife was asking for.

That actually ended up being a good thing for us, because while I had read all about natural birth and knew that's how I wanted to go (and succeeded) I had a postpartum hemorrhage and required a blood transfusion.

I had no interventions or augmentation in the hospital during my labor and delivery, and by the way, I did have a CNM attend the birth of my son.

For my second pregnancy, again for insurance reasons (my husband was out of work, so we had state insurance) I had gone to a traditional OB/GYN for prenatal care. She stated (not sure if it's true or not) that usually women who have a hemorrhage like that tend to repeat with subsequent births.

So...again we didn't have the money to pay out of pocket for a midwife (and I wasn't sure if any would be up to managing that risk anyway)...but I did make my natural birthing preferences clear and my OB seemed to be on board w/that.

I needed to have antibiotics as with this pregnancy I tested positive for GBS. So I had that "intervention", plus the OB recommended pitocin augmentation because my water had broken but after eight hours my labor didn't begin on it's own (I know that usually that's not an issue and under normal circumstances I would've opted to just let it happen on its own), so I did get the pitocin (which I don't recommend!) but continued on without any other intervention (ie. pain-relief medication).

My daughter was born after 7 hours of (intense!) labor and I did not hemorrhage, thankfully!

So I wouldn't really say that I *like* hospital birth better than home birth, but I will say that it can be done without routine interventions if you are really adamant about avoiding them.

If you are in a financial situation where you just can't pay out of pocket for a homebirth (and I do realize that there are midwives who with work with you on the cost)you can still have the kind of birth you desire if you do your homework and select the hospital carefully. I won't say it's really easy, but possible? Yes.

I am thankful that I "ended up" in a hospital for my first birth experience because the "remedy" for my situation was readily available.
Mar 17, 2010
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starstarstarstarstar 		Kristen's Reflections
by: Kristen

Hi Becky,

Thanks for sharing your experience. I understand that there are women who have hospital births and want to be in the hospital. I'm fine with that. I just mused above as to why I thought hospital births were so prevalent.

You're right in that I haven't had a hospital birth, but I'm no stranger to birth challenges. My first three babies were born while I lived well below the poverty line and used Medicaid for my medical insurance. It did not pay for my home births - I did, out of pocket. It was not easy by any means, but to me it was worth all the sacrifices it took (including selling things that were precious to me - collector's dolls, my drum set, etc).

I don't say this to imply that any woman who cannot afford a home birth midwife is in the wrong. I'm simply stating that I didn't have homebirths because I was financially able to afford them. I had them because I truly believed they were best for my baby.

In addition, I hemorrhaged, at home, after the birth of my first baby. My midwife carries Pitocin for this reason and I had it injected for this reason. I was woozy but did not require transfusion. If I had needed it, though, they had the car prepped and ready to head to the ER.

My midwife was confident that this would not happen in any of my other births, and it has not. I've been a bit more conscious of my prenatal preparation since that experience, though.

Again, I don't share this to minimize your experience or say that you shouldn't have been at the hospital. I'm just sharing that there are other ways of thinking about and approaching situations.

I believe that a woman should birth where she feels safe and where she feels she wants to be. For some women that is always going to be the hospital. That's fine. I share many stories of happy hospital births in my birth story section, and I'm happy to add more.

But at the same time I can acknowledge that some women want to be in the hospital and that's OK, I still don't think the medical paradigm of birth shoved down women's throats is OK. I don't think it's OK to give women this idea that doctors are saviors from birth and the hospital is the only safe place to be.

I'm not perfect at dancing around to acknowledge both sides of the issue and be politically correct about it all. And I don't want to be. I think women should birth where they feel comfortable. But I think it's wrong how modern society conditions and terrifies women into thinking that the hospital is the only safe place for them.
Mar 18, 2010
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starstarstarstarstar 		Response to Kristen
by: Becky H.

I absolutely agree with you. I too, hate the fact that people are conditioned to believe in doctors and hospitals as "saviors"...it is such a commonly held notion in our society. (Obviously, I believe in birth being a natural, normal thing otherwise, I wouldn't have come across your website =D).

I also know that in many other countries doctors and midwives work *together* to facilitate childbirth, which I think would be ideal for our culture as well.

Even with all the reading I do I know there's still more I could learn about natural birth...that's where I think sites like yours are doing a great job to inform women...reading other women's testimonies are just one way that pregnant women can learn that there's "another way". You don't know what you don't know, right?

I am thankful for your website (and others like it) because I know that I have gained knowledge about natural birthing methods even if I did have two hospital births, I am thankful that I didn't succumb to routine interventions unnecessarily just because of being uninformed and going along with what the birth attendant was used to doing. (I wish I would've leaned more about GBS, I may have been able to avoid using pitocin with my last one- but now I know there may have been an alternative way to approach that).

Anyway, I think that's the point of your site- and your doing a great job of making that information available to women and the more women are aware, the more we can influence the others around us to seek out a better way of doing this!

I'm sure that a home birth is much better than a hospital birth on all levels, and I will (if we decide to have more children) earnestly seek to make that an option for us with our next birth. I realize that there's always a way to do something if you really really want to (I guess I just didn't have that "want to" with my two birth experiences, but still made the best of them).

Thank you for the insight!

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