HOMEBIRTH

🏠 HOMEBIRTH 🏠 - Is it safe?

With COVID-19 challenges afoot, North America is seeing an increase in people planning to birth at home to avoid hospitals as well as avoid the restriction of support persons. Homebirth with a midwife is safe and legal in Canada, and in BC and ON, planned homebirth is well-integrated into the existing provincial healthcare system.

BC College of Midwifery criteria for safe homebirth candidates include:

  • no pre-existing heart/kidney disease

  • no pre-existing type 1 diabetes

  • no bleeding/high blood pressure during pregnancy

  • no insulin-dependent diabetes

  • no placenta previa/abruptio

  • no active genital herpes

  • single head down baby

  • 36-41 weeks gestation

  • labour is spontaneous

  • no more than one prior caesarean birth

  • consultation with care provider, mutual agreement between provider and client

🏠 Sometimes midwives may be comfortable attending a home birth of a person who does not meet all these criteria, based on their professional assessment of the client and situation.

🏠 Midwives are trained and equipped to provide neonatal resuscitation at home, in the rare event it is needed. They are also trained to quickly recognize scenarios that would benefit from transfer to the hospital.

🏠 The Ontario Association of Midwives has an excellent article with evidence-based information on Canadian and British homebirth statistics. Here are some of the main highlights. People who birth at home with a midwife:

  • are more likely to give birth vaginally

  • are less likely to require medical interventions, even if eventually transferred to hospital

  • same rates of live babies at birth and at 28 days of life as hospital birth

  • lower rates of 3rd and 4th degree tearing

  • lower rates of postpartum hemorrhage

🏠 What are your thoughts about and/or experiences with homebirth? 🏠

RESOURCES:

https://www.nyhomebirth.com/covid19-statement.html

https://www.ontariomidwives.ca/home-birth

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(19)30119-1/fulltext

https://www.cmbc.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/13.01-Statement-on-Home-Birth.pdf