The Homebirth Difference for Birth Trauma, Video Illustration

In a very short time, my post How Homebirth Benefits Babies has jumped to the #1 most viewed spot on my blog stats. I am working on a couple of posts inspired by some things that were said the comments on it, with respect to how we view the mother and baby's needs, as well as some thoughts on homebirth midwifery legislation.

In this post, I would like to illustrate one way homebirth causes less trauma to babies with some videos. Hospital births often involve the medical provider being very hands-on with the baby as it is born, pulling it out of the birth canal. The obstetrics textbook I had to read for my Hypnobabies Instructor training described the procedure of how to "deliver" a baby with, what seemed to me to be a lot of pushing and pulling on the baby. I had a homebirth midwife tell me that her goal is to "touch your baby as little as possible." In a birth with minimal disturbance, the baby will almost always emerge spontaneously, needing only to be caught, or, in a waterbirth, lifted out of the water. Of course, there are times when a pair of skilled hands is needed, for example, to help get a shoulder unstuck, but in most cases, avoiding pulling on the baby is ideal.

This video is made by chiropractors to explain the benefits of neonatal chiropractic adjustments to correct trauma caused by common birth practices. Some may find the angle the narration takes to be extreme, but the video footage itself is quite powerful. Some of the births it shows are typical hospital births, and some involve more extreme measures, which may be disturbing to some (TRIGGER WARNING).

Birth Trauma from Centre Quiropràctic Molins on Vimeo.

Contrast that with these homebirth videos

This is a home waterbirth video of a first baby, where you see the baby just slide out.



This video shows a homebirth in a sidelying position, where the midwife gently catches the baby: