Obstetrician Vs. Midwives

Childbirth is one of the most beautiful processes in the world, but one of great complication and decision making. So many things can easily go wrong and as upcoming parents that's the last thing anyone wants to have to worry about.

So on top of being faced with all these question and decisions, one major one is where you would like to birth the baby. In a hospital with a Doctor at hand, or at home with a Certified Midwife. For some who may not know, a midwife is a person trained to assist women in child birth. These women most typically are home assistants who use specific techniques through the birth process including no medications. This may seem like a good choice at times however there is always the chance of something going wrong and without the medication and equipment of a hospital, the chances of fixing the situation are slim.

Some mothers prefer home births because things are in their control and done in ways that they prefer, allowing them to enjoy the experience in the comfort of their own homes. No time away from the hospital is necessary and as society goes on, many more people favor this idea. Some say that it is selfish to want to have a home birth in the case that something goes wrong but who can really blame a mother for wanting to enjoy the birth of her baby in the way she wants. According to BabyCenter Expert advice the use of midwives grows as time goes on.

What is controversial about this method is that insurance companies do not cover the birth through midwives as they would through the hospital. Meaning that these families would have to pay between 1,000-5,000 dollars out of pocket, limiting this option for many people. I think that women have the right to make this decision and know that they will have the same coverage as they would if they choose birth through a doctor. It's not fair to have to bring your child to life in a way that isn't exactly what you want simply because you cant afford the other option.

I am a little confused on what your stance on this subject is. Are you for natural births at home with midwifes or are you against it? I thought you brought up some interesting statistics with hospital births but as for births with a midwife there wasn't sufficient enough information for me to make a decision on this controversial subject.

Hi,

I agree with Tori. I'm not really sure what your stance is here do you advocate midwives or not? I've actually considered becoming a midwife as future career and I was faced with a lot of controversy about how midwives don't amount to doctors. It is true that midwives can't really deal with emergency situations due to certain circumstances however I feel that they aren't any less than doctors. I noticed that you mainly referred spoke about midwives in a home situation. However, the patients of midwives can choose to have a home birth setting but they can also be assisted in the hospital by a midwife, to have a midwife does not mean that your only option is home birth.

I agree with both comments above, you never clearly come out and say exactly what your position on the topic is. I am not totally familiar with midwives and the home birthing process but when looking online I came across U.S.A Today: Home birth with midwife just as safe as hospital birth. In this article it states that the mortality rate per 1,000 was .35 for home birth and .57 in hospital births. Also regarding your statement about insurance Birth Options Alliance.org is also a website that provides helpful information on how to pay for home births and ways that they can be covered.

Both an Obstetrician and Midwife have great use during the birthing process. The one issue is that a midwife will be helping an individual more during a home birth compared to hospital birth (as mentioned) but be a bit more liable to scrutiny. Ironically, there is less stress involved in a home birth compared to a hospital birth, making the process much more fluid and effective. Its easy to reference history, being for the last several thousand years humans have been doing rather fine with home births without mass amounts of drugs and inductions.

The only point which i will point out about the possible debate is the attempted claim of medical malpractice when a midwife enters another's home. I would love to try and point out statistics and facts revolving around this, but more malpractice and deaths do actually come from Hospital births over home births. In short, Midwives are great things that are overlooked in modern society and I feel that the more natural approach helps the process much more.

You do a brilliant job in describing why mothers would want to give birth at home, but then state that things could go wrong. It contradicts what you are trying to say. I am also unaware of where you stand on this discussion. It seems that you are just stating facts and giving a narration of childbirth rather than posing an argument for your topic. Maybe phrasing it differently would of helped or you could have maybe disagreed with something in the article. It really doesn't allow you to defend what you believe in and why you chose this topic.