Where Can I Deliver My Baby Safely in the Puget Sound Area Because of COVID-19?

4 Reasons Home Birth with a Midwife Offers Safest Alternative to a Hospital

If you are in or nearing your third trimester of pregnancy and are starting to get nervous about where to deliver your baby because of COVID-19, we’d like to offer you some great news.

Not only is your home the safest place to deliver a baby in terms of maintaining social isolation, it also keeps you out of a hospital, which is really the last place you want to be if you’re not showing any symptoms of the coronavirus – especially while pregnant.

Pregnant women have weaker immune systems, so any exposure to the virus puts you at higher risk than other people of contracting it. So, you have extra reason to want to avoid the hospital for your delivery.

Let’s consider some of the reasons a home birth isn’t just safer during the coronavirus pandemic, but even in normal times:

4 Reasons to Deliver Your Baby at Home Instead of a Hospital

1. Germ Control

A home birth provides you complete control over the cleanliness of your surroundings. You get to wash your sheets, your floors, your utensils, your dishes, your bathroom – all your surfaces.

2. Nonstop Access to Food and Drink

   

You will also have access to whatever food and fluids you might want leading up to and going through labor. You can stock your fridge full of whatever you might want when you deliver your baby at home, and it will all be there.

3. You Decide Who’s There

In a hospital, all kinds of people can come in and out of your room. Nurses and doctors changing shifts or filling in for someone else. People in the hallway visiting other birthing mothers. You have no control over who comes in or near your hospital room.

When delivering a baby at home, you have complete control. You invite who you want there, and no one else. You therefore can minimize your exposure to the people who absolutely must be there for the delivery, and no others.

4. Comfortable Post-Birth Environment

After your birth, you can rest in your own bed, and you will be taken care of throughout the process by a midwife. If this is your first pregnancy, rest assured that this is a terrific benefit of a home birth. You never have to leave your house. You don’t hand your baby off to doctors and nurses to run a bunch of tests. Your midwife handles that, right there, and then you get to just be home.

And speaking of midwives, we can attest to their excellence. Both our children were delivered by midwife, one in a birth center, and one in our own home. And I was 38 years old when I delivered my second child at home. So, not young. Read my home birth story.

What If You Have Complications During Labor and Delivery?

The only time delivering a baby at home is more risky than a hospital birth is if you encounter certain complications during labor. How many pregnancies involve complications? Definitions vary, so hard data is tough to come by. One study says 6-8% of pregnancies are “high risk.” NPR reports that about 1% of pregnancies endure complications.

In the event of most complications, a hospital is a better place to be, even with COVID-19 going around. But there’s little reason to worry. With a trained midwife, she will be able to determine if and when transferring you to a hospital is necessary. They have clear processes and expertise for all of this, and they know what to do, and when to do it.

And look at this next one – home births are actually safer than hospitals in Washington state.

We’re Number 1!

With a midwife, you are actually less likely to suffer complications according to a recent study mentioned in a Seattle Times article, which stated:

“A recent study found lower rates of C-sections, prematurity, and infant mortality in states where midwives are well-integrated with the medical system.” The same study ranked Washington state as #1 for “midwife-friendly policies.”

That’s right! You live in the very best state in the nation for midwife delivery service.

What’s More Comfortable During COVID-19? 

You will be far more comfortable delivering your baby at home than in a hospital – especially during COVID-19. It’s your bed, your house, your bathroom, your kitchen – you can control the environment, move about freely as needed, and have complete privacy.

You won’t be strapped to a bed. You won’t have to lie on your back. Any midwife or doula will tell you that lying on your back is rarely the best position for childbirth. Yet this is what happens in so many hospitals.

Perhaps you never considered giving birth at home. We hadn’t either, actually, which is why our first child was born at a birth center. But after doing it at home the second time, we were instant converts.

COVID-19 doesn’t have to make your baby’s delivery harder. It may turn out to make it easier, because you might just find, like we did, that a home birth with a midwife is the best place to deliver a baby in a complication-free pregnancy.

What’s the Only Thing More Comfortable Than a Home Birth?

Nothing soothes the pain of labor better than being able to sway back and forth immersed in warm water, in a heated birth tub, hour after hour.

Royal Birth Tubs offers three birth tub rental packages. If you decide to go with a home birth, we are offering $100 off our Royal Birth and Queen of England rental packages through July 31st.

We’re doing this because we know not everyone was planning to do a home birth, and we want it to be as simple as possible. Plus, we cannot offer these services in their fullness during this time, since some of the perks we would normally include are not possible because of closed businesses and other restrictions.

And, if you choose the Do It Yourself service, we are waiving the $50 delivery fee during the coronavirus lockdown or until July 31st, whichever is later.

Feel free to contact us if you have questions about our tub rental options, or about home birth in general.