Home Birth
Comfort and Autonomy
Midwife-attended home births join skilled, experienced, and compassionate care with the comfort and familiarity of a woman's own home. Benefits of homebirth are centered on the principle that a woman in her own environment with people she knows and trusts will feel safer and birth normally, able to act intuitively and follow her impulses.
Continuity of care
Midwifery care includes time for the development of a trusting relationship with a care provider who will attend the birth, beginning to end. This personalized care and continuity with a trained care provider, along with shared decision making, autonomy in the creation of the birth environment, and informed choice regarding tests, procedures, and interventions are hallmarks of midwifery care.
Focus on family
Homebirth care is designed around the desires and needs of the family. Clinical monitoring is quiet and compassionate and every effort is made to minimize interventions. Informed choice continues during and after birth because we recognize that the experience belongs to the mother, the baby, and the family.
Water Birth
Many women find the use of water during labor and birth allows them to relax fully and allow their births to progress smoothly. Water lightens the effects of gravity on a pregnant body, soothes the tightening of the uterus, and offers a gentle transition for a baby already floating in warm water in the womb. The birth tub allows a laboring mother freedom of movement and a sense of space and privacy, while still allowing for loving support from partners and supportive monitoring from the midwife. Babies born in water emerge with gradual calm, breathing spontaneously when they surface and are placed on mama's chest. We offer suggestions for supplies to prepare a family for water birth, and experienced care to make this option safe and satisfying.
Our client Monica just moments after the home water birth of her son, Charlie.
video provided by Monica Bielanko
Home birth and water birth are not for everyone. Women with certain chronic, unresolved medical conditions are truly safer and better served in a hospital environment with medical staff. We discuss the advisability of home birth with all clients and decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.
