Who homebirths? A new series on homebirth.

Who homebirths?

Welcome to a new series of entries. A series of activism, humour, love and community. This is a series for those who have birthed at home, those who would like to, those who support homebirthing women and anyone with a love of family and community. It is a safe place for women who birth at home to share their stories about why they chose homebirth, what it means to them, and anything else that helps us make sense of this anti-birth world.

In Australia we are currently facing legislation which will make independent midwifery for homebirth a thing of the past. This means many women who have previously birthed at home, or who would like to in the future, will be denied a careprovider who works with them and without an intervening obstetric bureaucracy.

This is a way to share what we have, used to have and could lose in the near future.

This is for all women who birth at home.

It is not about careproviders, although many of the stories will include midwives, doulas and even some doctors who support women to birth at home. Careproviders are also welcome to share why they choose to work independently and support women to birth at home but the focus is on women, and their families who choose homebirth regardless of who supports or attends their births.

This series stands for the right of women to choose homebirth, a birth with loving attendants, in their homes.

Email me your story, photos also welcome. Attachments or in the body of an email are both fine. If you want to answer the questions here, that’s great or please feel free to share in any other way that suits you better!

janet (at) joyousbirth (dot) info

Homebirth. A basic human right.

This series is to debunk myths around homebirthing populations but also to keep a record of our homebirthing. Please feel free to share in any way you like but here are a few things to maybe answer or think about while you’re composing your response!

It would be great if you could open your response with some basic information to help me sort you into a category to enable easy searching. Thanks.

Where do you live?
How many homebirths have you had?
Why did you birth at home?

These are some other things to consider:

Did you homebirth your first baby or subsequent babies?
Have you used a publicly funded homebirth scheme in any country in the world?
Have you experienced hospital or birth centre birth?
Have you experienced trauma around birth?
How old were you when you were birthing at home?
With what ethnicity do you identify?
Have you had a caesarean? More than one?
Have you had a breech homebirth?
Do you identify as disabled/temporarily ablebodied?
Have you had a midwife-attended homebirth?
Are you in a relationship?
Are you single?
How did you pay for your homebirth?
Do you work at home or in the paid workforce?
Does your family have a history of homebirthing?