On my Instagram I asked if anyone had questions about home birth or our home birth. I love being able to share our beautiful birth experience and answer any questions I can. If you have a question that wasn’t answered here leave it below in the comments!
Home Birth Q & A
Q. How did you make the decision to have a birth at home?
A. In December I wrote an article called Why We Chose the Option of a Home Birth. It talks all about our thought process and why we decided a home birth would be the best option for us.
Q. What were your thoughts on the potential risk vs benefits of a home birth?
A. There are risks for home births and risks for hospital births. I had a low risk pregnancy which made me a perfect candidate for a home birth. I felt very confident about the plan we had in place if anything went wrong and I felt very confident in our birthing staff. For us the benefits far outweighed any risk.
Q. How was your labor pain and what worked to relieve it?
A. Labor pain is one of the hardest things to describe. It was my goal to focus the pain towards pushing the baby out verses holding on to the pain itself. I think the best part about a home birth is the ability to have more control over my own labor pain. No one was trying to tell me what to do or move me, so I could take each contraction one at a time to breath through them peacefully. In the background, I diffused lime and lavender while my peaceful, empowering birth playlist played. During the more intense part of labor (The last two hours) my husband helped provide relief by pressing very hard on my lower back. There was a massive difference between a contraction with his help and a contraction without. Having him by my side throughout the whole process truly made a difference with the pain as well.
Q. Was your home birth messy?
A. Birth is not clean and it shouldn’t be. A lot of fluid is apart of the process. Even though my birth was messy my midwives cleaned everything up before they left. When I got out of bed for the first time and looked around I never would have known a baby was born there only hours earlier. We used some of our own towels that were thrown into the wash and we had a trash can nearby to help with clean up. Everything else my midwives provided and took care of.
Q. What did your home birth care look like?
A. We worked with a local birthing center. It was the same place I went for care with my first birth. When I went into labor two midwives from that birthing center came to my house to assist us. We had another midwife come over the next day to check on baby and me.
Q. Did insurance cover your home birth?
A. Yes! Since our birth went through a certified birthing center our insurance covered it the same way it would cover any birth.
Q. Was your recovery different from your first birth?
A. My recovery was incredibly quick. My body felt 100% almost immediately. I bled about the same as with my first born, heavy for a couple days and light for a couple weeks. I started worked out again at 4 1/2 weeks postpartum and felt great about that decision.
Q. If you were to have another baby would you do another home birth?
A. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Home birth was such a different experience from our hospital transfer. It was peaceful, calm and overall less stress and pain. I wouldn’t consider birthing any other way again.
