risk doesn't disappear in a hospital—it just looks different

For most of us, we’ve been raised inside a story that says hospital equals safe. An entire system built to catch what might go wrong. And when you’ve been told that story your whole life, it makes sense that anything outside of it feels scary.

The truth—unknowing is scary. This is why for many circles the thought of home birth is something to fear. 

But here’s the truth I’ve come to know through years of walking alongside birthing women:

Safety is not a building.

And it’s not guaranteed by proximity to technology.

When you have an open heart and mind to actually learn about home birth you may come to the same realization that research has—home birth is just as safe if not safer than birthing at a hospital. Let me also be clear when I say that home birth doesn't have to be the right choice for every woman, but it certainly should be a choice women are informed about when they are choosing where to give birth. 

the comfort of control

Hospitals are incredible places for emergencies and have incredible tools when they are wanted or needed. But most births are not emergencies. In fact, when there is a trained birth attendant present such as a home birth midwife, possible complications are recognized early allowing for treatment or transfer before an emergency can arise. Birth attendants who are trained for emergencies where most can be handled safely and calmly right within the walls of the mother's home. 

Most births are physiological. 

And physiological birth does not thrive under surveillance, time limits, and constant interruption.

The hospital often feels safer because the practitioners are looking for adverse outcomes but in reality this is the very things that makes the hospital less ideal for low risk pregnancies to unfold safely. What women don't realize is medical decisions are being made for monetary and legal reasons, not for the wellbeing of a mother and baby. 

 "...Because obstetricians are socialized to search for pathology, they often see pathology where it doesn’t exist. Then they have something to do. They are trained surgeons, they are not trained in physiological birth." 

 "Very few doctors have ever seen a natural birth, it’s a oxymoron."

 "Hospitals are businesses, they want beds filled and emptied." - Patricia Burhardt

Control is not the same thing as safety. Monitoring is not the same thing as protection.

when the system becomes the risk

One of the hardest things for families to wrap their heads around is this: sometimes the very system designed to manage risk actually creates new risk.

Institutional risk is rarely talked about, because it’s normalized. It’s just “how birth goes.”

Things like: 

• 1970 the electronic fetal monitor was invented and the cesarean rate went from 4 to 23%
•  cesareans peek at 4p and 10p (a doctor explains) when doctors want to go home
•  the hospital is a system that is only designed to facilitate one kind of birth 

• Routine interventions in otherwise healthy pregnancies

• Continuous monitoring that restricts movement and instinct

• Artificial timelines placed on a process that is inherently unpredictable

• The cascade of interventions that so often ends in surgery

• Loss of autonomy, consent, and trust in one’s own body

These things are common—not because they’re always necessary, but because the system is built for efficiency, liability, and standardization.

Birth, however, is none of those things.

how home birth midwifery can make a difference

 "Midwives attend over 70% of births in Europe and Japan (countries with lower death rates than the U.S.), but only 8% in the US (second worst newborn death rate in developed world AND one of the highest maternal mortality rates among all industrialized countries)." Lake, Ricki. “The Business of Being Born.” Vimeo, 29 Jan. 2018, 

We see that in other countries where midwives are the primary practitioner for women during childbirth, have better birth outcomes. showing that midwifery care is making an impact on the global maternal mortality rate. 

The simple truth is that women don't need to be saved. Birth is a rite of passage, a physiological experience that unfolds safely when honored. Midwives are trained to understand normal physiological birth. This naturally gifts the ability to see when birth begins to stray from normal.  

As midwives we can reach women who lack quality maternity care, serve low income communities, provide education surrounding family planning, ensure families understand signs and symptoms for when to seek medical care, recognize complications before they arise and provide the appropriate management or transfer of care.

the cost of physiological disruption

Birth is guided by hormones that respond to safety, privacy, and connection.

Oxytocin doesn’t flow freely when a woman feels watched. Endorphins don’t rise when she’s rushed. Labor doesn’t unfold smoothly when fear is introduced.

Bright lights, unfamiliar voices, strangers coming in and out, being told when to push or how long she has—these things matter. The body hears them.

And when labor slows or stalls, interventions are introduced to “fix” what was disrupted. 

The risk didn’t disappear. It shifted.

home birth Is not the absence of responsibility

One of the biggest misconceptions about home birth is that it ignores risk. In hospital settings, women are told they aren’t responsible for their birth process. Hospital practitioners monitor women through technology. A system where technology is trusted over the woman and the practitioner knows best. With home birth the woman is choosing autonomy. She is choosing responsibility over her experience. Capable of choosing a trained birth attendant she trusts. Midwives are humanistic, meaning they trust the woman's ability, intuition, and wisdom. Yes, midwives still integrate clinical aspects of care, but instead of relying on technology we look more deeply caring for the mother as a whole—her and her baby as a dyad.

Home birth—with the right families, the right screening, and the right care—is deeply intentional.

Safety in home birth comes from:

• Careful risk assessment

• Continuity of care and deep relationship

• Respect for the natural rhythms of labor

• Observational monitoring without constant interference

• Clear plans for transfer when birth moves out of the realm of normal

Midwives are not pretending emergencies don’t exist.

They are protecting normal until it is no longer normal—and acting decisively when it matters.

different risks, not no risk

This conversation is not about pretending home birth is perfect or that hospitals are dangerous.

It’s about honesty.

The difference is not the presence or absence of risk.

It’s which risks are introduced by default.

Home birth does not disrupt a normal biological process in order to manage unlikely outcomes.

Hospitals often do.

a better question

Instead of asking:

Is home birth safe?

I think a better question is:

Safe from what?

Safe from rare emergencies? Safe from unnecessary surgery? Safe from trauma? Safe from being separated from your baby? Safe from losing your voice in one of the most vulnerable moments of your life?

Safety is layered.

And birth deserves more than fear-based decision making.

choosing with eyes and heart open

Most families who choose home birth are not anti-medicine.

They are pro-physiology.

They are choosing to trust a process that has worked for generations—while still respecting the wisdom of modern care when it is truly needed.

They are choosing presence over performance. Relationship over protocol.

Risk does not disappear in a hospital.

It simply looks different.

And every woman deserves the right to choose where—and how—she feels most supported, respected, and safe as she brings life into the world.