Advantages of Homebirth and Midwife Care
A midwife guides a woman and her family through one of the most treasured times of her life, helping her to create the experience that she is looking for in birth. This is best achieved through good prenatal care.

In order to have a pleasant pregnancy Mom must eat well and exercise. The midwife makes recommendations in this area. When Mom has had a pleasant pregnancy and feels healthy, this usually leads to a healthy labor, birth, and postpartum. A midwife knows when all is proceeding normally and assists in this process. She also knows when all is not proceeding normally and the pregnancy is becoming high-risk. Dietary recommendations are made along with exercise, and natural therapies.

Most of the time, this will reverse the process of becoming high-risk and the pregnancy will remain low-risk. Rarely, for whatever reason, a pregnancy may go onto become high-risk and the midwife transfers care over to a physician. Women that are high-risk during pregnancy are more likely to need the care of a physician and give birth in the hospital.

A midwife provides prenatal care, labor and birth attendance, and 6 weeks of postpartum care for mom and baby. A detailed list of this care is provided in services offered.

Homebirth with a qualified midwife providing care for a low-risk mother has been proven safe. There are many reasons why this is true. Some of the reasons are:
  • Less interference with the birth process.
  • Mom is free to move around because there is no IV placed in her arm and she is not hooked up to monitoring belts.
  • Intermittent fetal monitoring which has been proven to reduce the rate of c-sections.
  • Mom's are encouraged to birth in upright positions which open up the pelvis and allow better descent of baby.
  • There are less cases of fetal distress because mom is not flat on her back restricting the flow of blood and oxygen to baby and no drugs are given.
  • Great care is taken to prevent tearing and no episiotomy is done. The rare exception to this rule is if the baby is under severe fetal distress and delivery must be facilitated quickly.
  • Hemorrhage is less likely to occur because no episiotomy is done and midwives are willing to wait for the placenta to be expelled naturally by your body.
  • Breastfeeding is encouraged immediately after birth to assist in this process.
  • Breastfeeding is more likely to be successful due to the alertness of the newborn immediately following birth.
  • Babies are less likely to have problems maintaining their temperature, heart rate, and respirations because of the skin to skin contact and delayed cord clamping.
  • Bonding between mom and baby is greatly enhanced because of immediate and continued contact (no newborn nursery for the baby to go to).

If you are interested in finding out more about studies that have been conducted on the safety of homebirth please go to:

www.texasmidwives.com
www.changesurfer.com
www.gentlebirth.org
 
Ph. 210-688-6727 | San Antonio, Texas
 
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