The Importance of Preserving Home Birth

     Not too long ago, I used to think "home birth is a nice option.  An option women should have” but beyond that, not much more.  Recent events have made home birth so much more to me than “just a nice option.”

     Just over a year ago, my grandfather passed away.  Death, like birth, can affect us more profoundly than the surface would indicate.  My grandfather’s final wish was to die at home.  He was born at home more than 97 years ago, in a simple farmhouse in rural Georgia, and he wanted to leave this earth the same way.  It made me happy to be able to fulfill this wish.  I believe he held on long enough to be brought home from the hospital so he could sleep one final night in his own bed surrounded by his family.  He was called home to heaven the next morning.

     Reflecting upon this simple request made me think about the way we do things today.  You are born in the hospital, among strangers and the unfamiliar.  So too you die, surrounded by the same.  Sadly, my grandfather’s generation may be the last to have the simple gift of being both brought into this world and leaving it behind surrounded by love, family and kindness.  My mother’s generation and my own, for the most part, will not be afforded such a blessing. 

     For too long birth and death has been looked upon by the medical establishment as events that belong behind sterile hospital walls.  We must seek to preserve what has been all but lost.  It is my hope that my daughter’s generation and those after have the same opportunity to be brought into this world into gentle hands and loving hearts and that, when they are called heavenward, they go surrounded by the faces of the people who love them the most… feeling no fear, only gratitude and peace.