Baby!

“I’ve been criticized for my habit of posting ‘baby’ every time I attend a birth and I’ve been questioned as to the appropriateness of sharing birth photographs and films in public as well, but as long as so much misinformation and misunderstanding regarding homebirth exists—especially among the medical community and ESPECIALLY the way this misinformation and misunderstanding threatens families’ freedom to pursue homebirth as an option—I’ll be sharing these pictures and films every chance I get, and I’ll be posting ‘baby’ after every single birth I attend.”

I shared this on Facebook a couple months ago in the context of a conversation I’d had with a hospital-based birthworker about homebirth transfers.

A month or so later, I was discussing all this with my son—my homeborn son and the father of my homeborn grandson.

He fetched a calculator.

“How many babies are born at home in the USA every year, Mom?”

I told him one percent of four million.

“Okay,” he said, tapping away at the little keys, “that’s 40,000 homebirths a year.”

I was stunned.

“That’s 3,333 a month and…”

Tap, tap, tap…

“109 or so per day.”

And then he suggested we—all of us homebirth midwives—use the hashtag #birthsafeathome with something like “Baby!” every time we usher another new little one into life at home in order to create a universally accessible database demonstrating just how very much more often homebirth is truly safe than otherwise.

Friends, let’s do this! Let’s really show the world who we are and what we do!

What do you say?

Photo by Brezi Merryman of Love Is: Photography.

Kim Woodard Osterholzer, Colorado Springs Homebirth Midwife and Author

Books by Kim:

Homebirth: Safe & Sacred

A Midwife in Amish Country: Celebrating God’s Gift of Life

Nourish + Thrive: Happy, Healthy Childbearing

One Little Life at a Time: Recommendations + Record Keeping for Aspiring Homebirth Midwives