According to a study done by the Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health, low-risk women having planned home births have lower rates of interventions without an increase in adverse outcomes for both mother and baby. Interventions during labor and delivery include the use of Pitocin, epidurals, and others. While interventions are sometimes necessary, the use of these interventions highly increases a woman’s chance of having a C-section. They call this the “cascade of interventions” because when one intervention is used, the use of other interventions increases. Studies show that when both Pitocin and epidural are used during labor, 31% of first time, full-term mothers required a C-section. However, when no induction and no epidural were used, 5% of first-time, full term, mothers required a C-section.  

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Homebirth midwives take a different approach to this research by allowing labor to progress naturally without the use of Pitocin, while keeping a watchful eye out for any issues that may arise. Midwives are trained to manage pain with heat, counter pressure, position changes, etc, rather than the use of an epidural. Hospitals require laboring women to have IVs and continual fetal heart monitoring, this restricts movement for women during labor as they are hooked up to several different machines. Midwives encourage free movement of women during labor, only offer IVs when necessary, and monitor baby’s heartbeat via Doppler (a handheld device used intermittently rather than continuously). All of these techniques used by midwives reduces the use of interventions thus reducing the risk of an unnecessary C-section. This should be highly considered when deciding where you plan to birth your child and which provider you choose to help with your birth. Choosing to have a home birth with a trained midwife present, might just make the difference between having a healthy, natural birth and having an unnecessary C-section.