Home Birth vs Hospital Birth – Which One Is Best for You?

Most pregnant women give birth in hospitals – well over 90%. But more women are starting to wonder if a home birth might give them a better and more memorable experience than a hospital birth. But, are home births safe? Use this article to compare home birth vs hospital birth, and make an informed decision for which one is best for you.

9 Advantages of Home Birth

There are all sorts of advantages to a home birth, not the least of which is that it’s a far more memorable and empowering experience. Giving birth is what your body was designed to do, and barring certain complications, it works pretty well.

Here are nine benefits of giving birth at home.

1. Home Births Save Money

One woman compared her friend’s home birth experience with her own hospital birth. In terms of cost, the hospital birth cost over $5000 – and that was with insurance because she had to pay the deductible and a percentage of the subsequent costs. This is pretty common with all but the most expensive health insurance plans.

Her friend’s home birth cost $2850, which even included a placenta encapsulation, a special splurge which is the sort of thing you can do with a home birth while still saving money.

The costs of a home birth and a hospital birth will vary for each situation, but in general, home births have been found to cost much less than hospital births. That means you can afford to splurge, and you’ll still be saving lots of money compared to a hospital birth.

2. More Time with Baby

Another huge advantage of home births is that you get to be with your baby almost immediately after giving birth. This initiates an instant bond between baby and mother, as opposed to doing all sorts of tests and other procedures first.

With a home birth, you can just rest with your new baby.

In the woman’s story referenced earlier, she spent two full nights in the hospital after giving birth. This is not uncommon. Another friend of hers spent just four hours at a birth center after giving birth, and then got to go home with her baby. This too is not uncommon.

With a home birth, you don’t have to wait to go home, because you’re already there!

Plus, your time with your baby can include breastfeeding, which can be successfully accomplished less than 30 minutes after giving birth in some cases. Home births make this a priority. Hospital births whisk the baby away for tests and other procedures.

3. Giving Birth Is More Comfortable at Home

Hospitals are uncomfortable. We all know it, and it’s no different when giving birth. And this applies to anyone you have invited to be part of your birth too. Yes, those uncomfortable chairs.

You’re surrounded with equipment, usually stuck in a bed most of the time, and there is a constant stream of nurses and doctors coming in and out. Plus all the background noise that is typical of hospitals.

With a home birth, you can move around freely and switch from laying to standing to sitting to crouching to whatever.

You can eat and drink what you want, instead of put up with hospital food. If you want any specialty types of foods such as organic or vegetarian, you’re unlikely to get it at a hospital.

4. Even More Comfortable with a Heated Birth Tub

And a home birth is dramatically more comfortable if done using a heated birth tub. Water births, especially going through labor while surrounded by water, makes the experience almost immeasurably more comfortable. Any woman who has gone through it will tell you there is no comparison.

But it’s essential that you have a heated birth tub to sustain your comfort throughout the entire experience.

Labor oftentimes goes on for ten hours, twenty hours, or even longer. Water will turn room temperature long before then, and if you’re stuck in an inflatable tub, you’ll have to pump out all the water and then refill it. That process could take a couple hours or even longer.

With a heated tub, you fill it up once, and then you’re in maximum comfort the rest of your delivery.

5. Same Degree of Safety – if Not More Safe

This is a big topic, and we can’t fully do it justice here. Lots of studies have been done on the safety of home births compared to hospital births.

The main thing to know is this:

If you have a low-risk pregnancy, you will very likely be just as safe at home as in a hospital as long as you work with a trained midwife. If you have a higher risk pregnancy, you are better off in a hospital. This study found that home births result in:

• Fewer obstetric interventions
• Fewer negative outcomes like postpartum hemorrhaging or perineal tears
• Newborns less likely to need resuscitation or oxygen therapy
• Newborns less likely to have meconium aspiration – breathing in their first stool
• Newborns less likely to be admitted or re-admitted to a hospital

That’s a pretty strong endorsement for the higher safety of home births.

Another study of 17,000 home births found no significant increase in neonatal deaths compared with planned hospital births.

And yet another study found that maternal morbidity was lower in home births vs hospital births. Plus, far fewer C-sections were ordered with home births.

You can see even more home birth statistics and studies at the end of this article at Seattle Home Maternity.

What’s a high risk pregnancy?

High risk pregnancies have some sort of elevated medical risk that home birth situations are not equipped to deal with. Common risks include preeclampsia, type 1 diabetes, and multiple births like twins and triplets.

The good news is, a trained midwife will know if a birthing mother needs to be transferred to a hospital. Common scenarios where this is necessary include high blood pressure, a desire for pain meds, excessive bleeding, and other labor and delivery problems.

6. Avoid Unnecessary and Costly Medical Interventions

While home births that run into trouble can be transferred to a hospital, hospital births that run into trouble don’t always make the right decisions either.

About 30% of hospital births end up as C-sections. This is far higher than it should be, and some doctors are too quick to order them. And C-sections carry their own set of risks, such as blood loss, internal bleeding, and infection. They also can increase the risks of any future pregnancies.

And C-sections are just one medical intervention you might not want, but that doctors will order anyway. With a home birth managed by a qualified midwife, you can rest assured that you’ll only end up in a hospital if absolutely necessary.

7. More Control in a Home Birth Experience

In a home birth, you have almost complete control of the birth experience.

You can decide just about every detail, including

• Food
• Drinks
• Scents
• Music
• Privacy
• Who is invited
• Candles
• Where you want to be in any given moment
• Post-birth planning such as photos, meals, etc

You can set up your birth setting however you want in a home birth, and your midwife and doula will support you completely as long as everything is safe.

8. Convenience

There’s just no comparison here. With a home birth, you never have to leave your house. No worries about getting stuck in a traffic jam on the way to the hospital. No worries about construction, or a scorching hot car in the heat of summer, or your partner swearing at drivers for going too slow. There is no commute in a home birth.

And after baby is born and the midwife has wrapped everything up, you just relax in your own bed, everyone else leaves, and you’re done!

9. You Make the Guest List

With a home birth, you decide who is there. This includes the midwife, your doula, and any family or friends you might want present. No one else will be there.

With a hospital birth, you never know who is going to come in the room. Nurse shifts change, doctors go home, job shadows might show up. If you have any complications, they might invite interns or residents to come and observe so they can gain experience.

And because you don’t know when delivery will happen, the doctor you expected to be there might not be. They might be home sleeping because it’s 3am, and baby is coming now. With a home birth, your midwife is committed to you.

As one midwife described it in an NPR interview, home birth is like a marathon. Yes, it’s hard, grueling, exhausting, and painful, but the reward of success is a priceless life experience that has no equal.

3 Advantages of Hospital Birth

Hospital births do have a few benefits that home births cannot offer. But there are surprisingly few. Here are the main ones:

1. No Mess

With a home birth, you have to plan ahead for the mess. Birth is messy. Sometimes more messy than others. But because you never know what to expect, you have to plan ahead.

With a hospital birth, the hospital staff handles all that so you don’t have to. And after your baby is born, your home will still look the same, because the mess is all at the hospital.

2. Ready for Anything

For high risk pregnancies and normal pregnancies that end up having rare complications, a hospital is more or less ready for anything. They have the medications, the equipment, and the training to respond.

The reality is that very few pregnancies fall in to the high risk category, so it’s unlikely you will need this benefit of a hospital birth. But if you do need extra help that a midwife cannot provide, the hospital will be ready.

That said, midwives at home births also come prepared with a variety of equipment and treatments too. They bring suturing materials, numbing agents, oxygen tanks, and a variety of other ‘just in case’ materials that often aren’t needed.

3. Pain Meds Galore

This is really the number one reason many women choose a hospital birth. A midwife will not administer pain medications such as epidurals or Pitocin during a home birth.

Remember the marathon quote. Giving birth at home is a serious undertaking, not for the faint of heart. But you will feel such a huge sense of achievement when you succeed at it. You’ll have done something incredible that half the population could never do even if they wanted to.

But with a home birth, you have to do it without pain medication. If you’re not up for all that excitement, a hospital birth is probably your choice.

Should You Give Birth at Home or at the Hospital?

Only you can answer that. Consider what you’ve read.

Be honest about your health status and the risk level of your pregnancy.

Look at the costs.

Think about your ideal birth experience and your pain tolerance.

Then make a decision. But whatever you decide, don’t wait until the eighth or ninth month. Planning a home birth takes time, and you don’t want to be rushing around at the last minute arranging everything.

If you live in the Seattle area – King, Snohomish, or Pierce County – and want someone else to take care of a lot of those home birth details, that’s what our Queen of England concierge birth tub rental experience was designed for. It’s so much more than just a birth tub.

We will take tasks off your plate so you can prepare for your coming baby with less stress.

Want to learn more?

Call us at 844-606-BABY, email us at service(at)royalbirthtubs.com, fill out our contact form, or check out our three levels of Royal service – Noble, Royal, and Queen of England.