What Are the Top Home Birth Benefits?

The choice of where to give birth isn’t necessarily simple. You can give birth in a hospital, in a birth center, at home, or wherever you happen to be at the moment, such as in line at the DMV. But of all these locations, giving birth at home offers some great advantages over all the other choices. Here are the top home birth benefits, in no particular order.

12 Benefits of Giving Birth at Home

This list started out with just ten, but we just keep coming up with more.

1. No Traffic and No Commute

Let’s get real. Riding in a car while in labor is no picnic. In fact, the car is probably one of the worst places to be confined while going through contractions. And if you haven’t broken your water yet by the time you drag yourself in, the car is one of the last places you want to do it.

You can’t shift positions very much. You can’t be soothed by anyone else very well. And what happens if you hit traffic? The only thing worse than going through labor in a car is going through labor in a car that isn’t moving.

The stop and go. The roar of trucks going by. The music blaring from nearby cars. The smells of the highway. And what about the weather? Would you prefer sticky car seats in the hot summer, or bundling up to stay warm in the winter while enduring contractions? What happens if you run out of gas?

Getting stuck in traffic is the stuff of childbirth horror stories. There are videos of women giving birth in parking lots, hallways, and backseats. How does that happen? Because they had to drive somewhere just to have a baby.

No thanks. Home birth is better.

2. Home Birth is Simpler

Note that we didn’t say “simple.” Nothing about giving birth is simple. But it is much simpler to give birth at home. When it goes well, you just wake up, have a baby, and go back to bed.

No doctors will whisk your baby away right after it’s born. There’s no waiting room. No tubes to stick in all sorts of places. No forms to fill out. No insurance cards to remember. No worries about all the hospital beds being filled up.

It’s your house. You know where everything is. One of the best benefits of home birth is that you’re giving birth…at home!

3. Choose Your Surroundings and Comforts

In a home birth, you can plan ahead to make your birth experience the most comfortable it can be. You have complete control of your surroundings. You can choose:

• The music
• The smells
• Where you’ll give birth (well…maybe)
• Your clothes
• Where you want to be
• Blankets, stuffed animals, just about anything else you want

In a home birth, you get to decide. In a hospital, it has already been decided for you before you even arrive. And you don’t get a say.

Also, your home will be far more comfortable for the other people you want there for the birth. Hospitals excel at providing the most uncomfortable furniture on the planet for visitors and guests. In your home, your birth team can be comfortable too.

4. Choose Your Consumables

Want to eat or drink something? Want to change what you thought you would want to eat or drink while going through labor? In a home birth, you can plan for all sorts of scenarios regarding what you might want to eat or drink. And if labor goes on for hours and hours, what meets your needs best may change over time.

Some people like to make a bunch of food a couple days ahead of time and have options ready just in case. And you can also feed all the people who are there with you.

5. Choose Your People

Speaking of people, one of the very best home birth benefits is that you get to decide who is there. You select the friends, family, midwives, doulas, social media influencers, and news reporters you want to be there. Anyone not on your list doesn’t get to come in.

No random nurses or doctors will traipse in unannounced while you’re in various compromising positions. No other birthing mothers or their people will be wandering through the hallway outside.

6. Choose Your Birth Positions

With a home birth, you have nearly unlimited options for the positions in which you will go through labor and ultimately deliver the baby.

You can stand. You can squat. You can lay face down. You can lie on your back. You can lie on your side. You can use a birth stool.

Many women have an idea of the position they think they’ll want to be in when it comes time to deliver the baby. But when that time comes, it’s not uncommon for the mother to change her mind. In a home birth, changing your mind is easy.

But in a hospital, the traditional approach has been to put the mother on her back. As it turns out, this is actually one of the worst positions to deliver a baby, because of how it angles your pelvis, and for other reasons. So why do hospitals do it this way? Because it’s easier for the doctors and nurses.

That’s the reason.

7. You Can Use a Birth Tub

Going through labor and delivery surrounded with warm water in a heated birth tub has no comparison.

You will simply revel in the comfort of being underwater and having the freedom of motion to float and sway while going through such a physically demanding experience.

And with a HEATED birth tub such as what you get from Royal Birth Tubs, you never have to get out if you don’t want to. With inflatable and other types of tubs, the water gets cold (and it doesn’t take very long for it to happen). Then, you have to climb out, refill the tub – which takes a while – and then get back in, only to have to do it all over again next time the water cools down.

In a home birth, renting a birth tub is easy. And if you have it delivered, it’s even easier.

See how home birth was meant to be experienced

8. Home Births Are More Memorable

You live where you’ll be giving birth. That means, you’ll be able to re-live the memory and all the unexpected surprises, tribulations, moments of joy, and bonding experiences that happen during the process.

We love telling people about our own home birth experience.

When telling the story, we just point over to a part of the dining room and say, “He was born right over there!” It always gets a good laugh.

Your home becomes part of your birth story, and you’ll never forget it. But the hospital feels like a different world. It’s filled with all sorts of strange equipment, people in masks, uncomfortable beds, and all the rest. It will be memorable too of course, but over time, the memory will fade much faster than with a home birth.

9. No Last Minute Rush to the Hospital

When your water breaks, the world stops. But you can’t stop if you’re giving birth in a hospital. It’s time to get going. You have to pile in the car, grab your stuff, hope there’s no traffic or construction or car trouble, and get there as fast as you can without getting a speeding ticket.

And hopefully, you don’t forget anything.

It adds to the stress.

But with home birth, you just start the process, relax as best you can, and go through it. You don’t have to go anywhere. Your midwife, doula, and everyone else who is part of your big day come to you.

10. Don’t Have to Rely on the Medical System

This isn’t to be too critical of hospitals, because there are excellent people who work there. But let’s get real. Navigating the medical system is no one’s idea of a good time.

Plus, it’s not uncommon for a birthing mother to have her birth plan ignored at hospitals. They might use medications or other methods you weren’t expecting and don’t want. Hospitals are also well-known to administer C-sections more often than is necessary.

Why do doctors revert to C-sections more often, when they increase the post-birth recovery time and carry additional risks to the mother?

It can’t be because they’re paid more for them, right? Or because they’re shift is ending soon? Or because they don’t want to get sued, but don’t have the skills that a midwife has to help you navigate the birth process? Nah.

It’s a reality – home birth is less complicated and safer at home than in hospitals.

11. Home Birth Is Less Costly

This is true even with most insurance plans. You still have to pay a deductible. When comparing home births to hospital births, the costs of home birth are nearly always going to be far lower.

That’s why we recommend, in addition to your midwife, hiring a doula when giving birth at home. She will make your home birth experience far better than it would otherwise be.

And even after renting a birth tub and hiring a doula in addition to the midwife, you’ll most likely still end up saving thousands of dollars over the cost of a hospital birth.

That’s why we offer the Royal Birth Signature Service – where you get served like you deserve in the weeks leading up to the delivery date and afterward. Or, you can go all out and get treated like the Queen of England would want if she was giving birth at home.

With all the money you’ll be saving over a hospital birth, you can afford to splurge a bit and make your whole experience more delightful.

12. Home Birth Is Empowering

Let’s be clear – having a baby is empowering. Full stop. It’s amazing.

But after delivering a baby at home – without pain meds – you feel like you can conquer the world. The physical exertion and ultimate victory from the experience makes you feel powerful, strong, and ready for motherhood.

It’s a feeling no man can understand. But it’s also a very different feeling than the one you’ll have delivering via C-section or with an epidural. It’s just not the same.

If you want to feel all the endorphins and hormones that come and go throughout the labor and delivery process, giving birth at home simply has no equal.

Your Home Birth Benefits Continue

Having birth at home is obviously one of our passions. But you can have an okay, good, or great home birth experience.

We want it to be great!

That’s why we created a simple guide sharing 7 secrets to the best possible home birth experience.

Whether you work with Royal Birth Tubs or not, the guide will be a great help to you.