Analyzing some info

There are so many women that have their baby in the hospital because they do not even realize there are other options. For a hospital birth the woman has to leave the comforts of her home, pack some things and drive to a hospital. She gets checked into a room that is not comfortable or familiar and waits for things to start. The birth is uneventful and soon they are being discharged. This is when the dad realizes in his haste to get his lovely bride to the hospital, he forgot the car seat. A few hours later the family opens the door to their house and enters with their newest addition. The mom is so tired and starts crying because she can’t remember what the nurse told her about breast feeding, so she decides to bottle feed instead.

Now we are going to look at a home birth. The woman goes into labor and so she calls her midwife. The midwives shows up about thirty minutes later and assess the mom, everything looks good so now they wait for the hard labor to begin. As they wait the midwife reassures the woman that she is doing great and they talk about ways to make the process easier. a few hours later the woman delivers her baby and the midwife assessed mom and baby. All is well, so the midwife get the birth weights and encourages the mom to drink fluids. The midwife shows the new mom how to breast feed, and helps her get settled. The dad is also doing things to help and is relived that the midwife will be staying overnight to help out. The next morning the midwife leaves and the family starts to readjust to their home life.

The difference in these two births is that when you are in the hospital, you leave the comforts home behind and add some stress because you are in an unknown environment. Delivering a baby in a hospital would cost upward of $10,000, compared with the roughly $3,000 it would cost to hire a home-birth midwife to take care of the entire pregnancy. (Michelle Goldberg Jun 25, 2012 4:45 AM EDT)

According to the National Center for Health Statistics Home births have a lower risk profile than hospital births, with fewer births to teenagers or unmarried women, and with fewer preterm, low birth weight, and multiple births. (Home Births in the United States, 1990–2009)

So there is a cost difference and it is NOT as scary to have your baby at home when you realize the survival rate is good and the health might be even better than the hospital. We need to start looking at more facts and not just deliver in the hospital because someone tells us that it is safer.

aksing questions

- First, what is your research question? Write it out.

Is having your baby at home a safe practice?

- How would you currently respond to this question, based on your gut emotions and experiences?

I’m thinking what if there are complications? That is posing a huge risk when you could be safe in a hospital bed. On the other hand, child birth is a natural process… I think it would be more natural to have your baby at home in a quite environment. My sister had her kids in a hospital and they asked her some really weird questions like, “do you want to put this baby up for adoption”. We thought they were joking because this family is perfect. It turns out the social worker had the wrong room! This brings up the point do babies get mixed up and end up getting the wrong treatment? This would not happen at a home birth even if you had twins.

- What do you think people with other viewpoints would say in response to your question?

Well for someone that has had experience giving birth in a hospital; or maybe a woman who has had complications would probably say a hospital setting would be a safer place to consider giving birth. What about keeping your new baby safe from infections? What about new born shots? I think there is more fear of the unknown.

- What else do you want to find out to gain a working knowledge and some credibility on this issue?

I would like to know why we as a society believe a hospital is the best place to give birth. I want to know when things changed from home birthing to hospital room. And why C-sections are so popular when there is oftentimes no need. Is it safe to deliver your baby at home? Do midwifes have enough training? Is the survival rate any different in home births verses hospitals? Is the cost of delivering at home different, more or less? Does insurance have anything to do with why hospitals push you to use their facility? What are other countries doing and what stats if any can they offer?  

~Megs

Hi my name is Meg, I created this account for my English class online. I'm currently a student and working towards getting my P.A.
For this English class we are learning  how to writing an argumentative paper, and the topic I have chosen is home birth. I do not know much about this topic but would like to know more so I'm going to be doing a lot of research!