by Talina Norris

Created on: January 09, 2009

Choosing a childbirth practitioner is a big deal for every woman. You are putting your life and the life of you child in this persons hands. Anything can happen during labor and most women want someone they can trust, whom they are comfortable with and whom shares their same ideals about childbearing. This is precisely why more and more women are choosing to birth outside the hospital these days.

Childbirth is a very personal, intimate and emotional experience. Each woman deserves the right to choose what delivery is best for her and her unborn child. Now some women choose to birth outside the hospital because they want to experience childbirth naturally and privately (often times this is not an option in the hospital setting). I've met women who birth outside the hospital for spiritual reasons, some do it for financial reasons and others even do it because of personal convictions.

Personally, I have chosen to birth outside the hospital to avoid unnecessary medical interventions in my risk free pregnancy. Did you know many hospitals and doctors treat birth as an illness that needs to be managed and cured? For the majority of normal, risk free pregnancies this managed type of care is unnecessary and even creates more trouble during labor.

I have done extensive research on the hospitals in my area and I learned they all run delivery much like an assembly line at a manufacturing plant. Each mother is expected to deliver within a certain time frame upon checking in to the hospital. I even had to sign a form required by my insurance company that outlines the maximum length of my stay from admission to release in various birth situations at my local hospital. This was a bit shocking to me.

I learned that my doctor thinks women should progress through labor at a certain speed, if that doesn't happen the next step is to administer pitocin, a labor inducing drug. Many doctors feel the need to medically intervene and to control the birthing situation with drugs like pitocin, artificial rupture of the membranes, IV's and fetal monitoring out of fear. They generally do not want you or your baby to be harmed in the delivery but there is no such thing as a typical delivery so they have nothing to compare it to. As a result they try manage the progress of labor, to make it typical quick and safe. This covers their own butts and it relieves their fears about childbirth.

The problem is unnecessary labor induction often results in a more painful labor and can lead to the eventual

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