Giving Birth At Home

The decision to have a birth at home is always a big decision. In some countries where there is little medical care, giving birth at home or in a birth hut is common. In countries where there is a comprehensive modern medical maternity model, home birth may be legal and supported or frown on. Home birth is almost always a political issue whether that is right, wrong, good or bad this is the reality.

For most families who plan a home birth in modern countries there is always the option to go to hospital if it’s necessary. All births can be made safer and better when you have good birth and coaching skills. When your husband, partner, friends, relatives and children are there to help you cope with this very dynamic experience.

Before you react to the word ‘coach’ let’s think about that role. A support person is there to give you support but little guidance. Coaching is not telling you what to do, it’s a person who can give both support and guidance as you need it. Use whatever term you want as long as people know how to help you if and when you need some help.

Birth is the ultimate in physiological processes probably because it’s so infrequent and involves two people (mother and baby). Other naturally occurring physiological processes such as hunger, sexual drive, monthly period, getting sick or going to the toilet don’t involve a second person to the level of letting a baby out of your body. It’s important to make this journey as safe and easy for both.

Birth in any place at any time can be the most physically intense experience of a woman’s life. All over the world women are giving birth in the exact same way … one contraction following another. This will occur whether the woman is surrounded by loved ones in a safe environment or in the middle of a famine, war or tsunami.

Having skills such as Directed Breathing, relaxing inside The Pelvic Clock or having your partner use Deep Touch Relaxation changes the dynamics of childbirth. Learning birth and coaching skills based on our common human body can change the birth experience from something that happens to us into a conscious experience a dance between the mother and baby as they work together. Working with your partner, friends or relatives during the process of labour and delivery increases huge intimacy in your family.

Working with your baby’s efforts to be born in a conscious manner
increases the great satisfaction you feel about your home birth.


There is another reason to learn good birth and coaching skills. There are some times when it becomes important to seek medical care in hospital during a birth. When you have birth skills you can move into a medical environment still using these skills. This means you are much less likely to feel that your home birth has failed. Instead when you recognize a need to have medical care you can continue to work with your baby’s efforts to be born anywhere.

Where you have your baby may be important however, being able to work with the process of birth where ever you birth or with whom becomes much less important to the memories you’ll live with than by what you have been able to do for yourself. Using birth skills throughout labour and delivery is probably the most significant thing you can do for yourself and baby.

You will never regret being a skilled birthing woman or having your loved ones work with you. This is the true intimacy of childbirth and building your family’s intimacy. This experience is enhanced when having a home birth because your home is where you express your own individual intimacy to both place and people.

If you want to know more about Directed Breathing, the Pelvic Clock or Deep Touch Relaxation then visit http://www.birthingbetter.com and learn more about The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better® the only childbirth preparation course that focuses entirely on birth skills for mothers and fathers for ALL births. Wintergreen, is a Trustee to Common Knowledge Trust which produces The Pink Kit. She is a childbirth communicator and communicates on the societal benefits of growing a skilled birthing population