Growing number of women choose to give birth at home

For the vast majority of parents-to-be, giving birth involves a stay at a hospital or birthing center. But a growing minority are choosing instead to have babies at home, where, they hope, they can have a more private, low-tech experience and allow the process to unfold naturally. It doesn’t hurt that in these days of rising health-care costs, having a baby at home is a lot cheaper, too.

When Jason and Rebecca Sparks were planning for the birth of their second child, Alexander, who’s now almost 4 months old, they decided to have him at their home in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. The Sparkses had their first child, Ariana, 2, at a hospital in Wausau, about an hour away. The experience felt impersonal, says Jason, now 33, and was more uncomfortable than it needed to be for Rebecca, 31.

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Not only that: Even though Ariana’s birth was without any complications, the bill came to nearly $14,000. The Sparkses, who have coverage through Rebecca’s job as a graphic designer, were on the hook for their plan’s $5,000 deductible and nearly $2,000 in other charges.

This time, the experience was very different. Their midwife and her assistant came to the house and stayed throughout the 21-hour labor. Rebecca was able to move around, and she gave birth in a more comfortable squatting position rather than lying down. The price was also easier to manage: $3,500, which they had set aside in a tax-advantaged health savings account. In addition to the delivery, the fee covered pre- and postnatal care.

“It’s good to have that safety net there of the hospital,” says Jason. “But to rely on them for everything, when health care is so expensive, just doesn’t make sense.”

An increasing number of people seem to agree. Between 2004 and 2009, the number of home births grew 29 percent, to 29,650, according to figures released last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although the higher figure represents fewer than 1 percent of all U.S. births in 2009, it’s the highest proportion since data collection began in 1989.

Non-Hispanic white women made up 90 percent of the increase; one in 90 births to these women occurred at home in 2009. Women who gave birth at home were also more likely to be older than 35 and to have already had children than those who gave birth in the hospital, according to the CDC.

The choice to give birth at home doesn’t sit well with many doctors. The position of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Medical Association is that while they respect a woman’s right to choose the birth site, the safest choice is a hospital or birthing center.

Although the great majority of births are routine, unforeseen and life-threatening crises such as severe maternal bleeding and fetal delivery problems such as shoulder dystocia, in which the baby’s head has emerged but the shoulder is stuck behind the pubic bone, do occur.

“Even with the best-trained person at a bedside, if you don’t have access to emergency services there’s only so much you can do,” says Erin Tracy, an OB/GYN at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.