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The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS, a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA

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First-Time Moms Ideal Candidates for Homebirth

If you missed the segment about Orgasmic Birth, aired on ABC"s 20-20 on Jan. 2,
you can still catch the mini-segments:

Birth Orgasms: Women Speak Out - Is it possible to have an orgasm during childbirth?

Women Who Prefer Home Birth - For some, delivering a healthy child doesn"t involve a trip to the hospital.  [Note - the associated article says, "Modern medicine means not having to go through childbirth alone."  It"s more accurate to say "Responsible modern medicine means reserving risky interventions for when the benefits outweigh the risks." I know lots of responsible women who give birth at home with the perfect birth team . . . their partner, their midwife and their doula.  They are definitely not alone, and they have all the medical assistance they need, just like a woman giving birth with a midwife in a hospital!  Savvy people know the difference between midwife-assisted homebirth and unassisted birth.]

The Orgasmic Birth web site also has a lot of great information about birth in general:
Birth by the Numbers
The Director"s Blog
Birth Stories

First-time moms are much less likely to have the more serious complications of placental retention and postpartum hemorrhage because the uterine muscle tone is better in a first-time mom.

The "problems" they are more likely to have are that their labors may take a little longer. This is more of a problem in the hospital, where they like to see your labor progress at a certain rate and can get aggressive with interventions if your body doesn't naturally keep things moving along. (Which is made harder with all that pressure. Alas. The increased probability for a first-time mom to end up with pitocin or an epidural and eventually a cesarean might actually make the hospital a significantly more dangerous place for a first-time mom than one having a second or third.)

So, the "problems" with first-time moms are likely to be that things are "taking too long", either labor or pushing. Fortunately, that isn't an emergency. It might mean that you end up transporting to the hospital, but it's not going to be life threatening.

Really, it's hard for me to imagine why anyone would say that homebirth isn't appropriate for first-time moms? If anything, you know they aren't having a VBAC. And if they plan a homebirth with the first, they reduce their chance of a cesarean, which can make it harder to plan a homebirth with your second.



This Web page is referenced from other pages containing related information about Parents Share Information About Homebirth and Homebirth Safety/Advocacy

 




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