This is a great post written by a fellow homebirth mom regarding the comment women who birth at home often receive from family members, friends, and strangers.
Here are some excerpts:
"I am not brave to birth at home. What is brave in my opinion is to entrust my body to someone else."
"What I have realized is that the brave comment often has nothing to do with being “brave” but is often just another way to say “I think you are crazy”. Whereas before I would answer with a confused face, now, I answer directly to that comment by saying that I think the brave people are those that go the hospital. It turns the table and brings up more questions about the things that I want to avoid. The power struggles, the hospital policies that have no basis in health reasons but simple bureaucracy, interventions that are still practices without any scientific backup and all the rest of the negatives of going to the hospital when trying to have a normal and natural birth."
"When most people talk about the things that can go wrong they are often talking abut things that are of direct consequence of standard interventions that are often not questioned, so bringing up those risks as a reason that I want to avoid the hospital setting often brings more insight than just saying that I want to avoid the interventions. Of course I know that things can go wrong, but that is why I would rather stay away from the place that holds the most risks and knowing what I know, that is in a hospital setting."
"It has nothing to do with being brave but with making an informed decision that I believe is best. It is about staying within my comfort zone and choosing what I believe is the safest place to give birth."
I couldn't agree more.
