FAQ

Why Have a Home Birth?

Professional health care can be provided for the mother and unborn infant with a licensed midwife at a greatly reduced price, here are a few of the other reasons you may want to choose a home birth:

• Surroundings are familiar and comfortable.
• Supportive families may participate in the birthing process.
• Mother has a very active role in her care.
• Care is personalized to meet the needs of the mother and family.
• Risk of infection and other complications is reduced.
• Mother and newly born infant are never separated.
• No routine hospital procedures.
• Mother has the ability to choose a position for labor and birth which is least stressful to her baby and to herself.
• Midwife is able to take more time with the mother and family to answer their questions and concerns.
• Father may have a very active role in the birth process, if he so chooses.

Is Home-birth Safe?

Studies show at least 85% of all births are uncomplicated deliveries, while another 5-8% can be safely managed outside the hospital with a skilled, experienced birth attendant. This does not mean that there are no risks involved in having an out of hospital birth, it simply means your risk is very low. Heaven Sent Birth Services is a midwifery and doula/monitrice service dedicated to the support and education of birthing families throughout Oklahoma. We are midwives who believe in the natural process of birth. We believe that birth is a natural, joyous and intimate event for a family and we will do all we can to encourage and facilitate your choices for your birth.

Relevant Links:Is Homebirth Safe Homebirth Study

What is a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM)?
Certified Professional Midwives are skilled professionals who provide the Midwives Model of Care to women and families in a variety of settings, including birth centers, homes and hospitals. Preparation to become a CPM involves specialized, competency-based education programs and risk assessment training, that requires out-of-hospital clinical experience.

CPM CertificationThe Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) credential requires that all candidates demonstrate successful mastery of both the didactic information and clinical experience components. The didactic component must include either education in a program accredited by the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council (MEAC) or ACNM Certification Council (ACC), or completion of PEP, a competency-based education program. Each candidate must also complete a clinical component that is at least one year in length and equivalent to 1350 contact hours under the supervision of one or more approved preceptors.

Competency-based EducationCompetency-based education is based on the testing and documentation of skills that are relevant to real-life job conditions, as determined by psychometric research within the profession. The current CPM competency-based education program is based on a national job analysis that surveyed the largest number of professionals ever examined in any study of midwives. The Certified Professional Midwives’ credentialing process was evaluated by independent researchers at Ohio State University as a credential that exemplified the established standards for educational and psychological testing, as determined by the American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, and the National Council of Measurement in Education.

The CPM credential as the basis for licensureStates are beginning to make use of the CPM credential in the state regulatory process because this credential is legally defensible and psycho metrically sound. In addition to significant cost reductions, states which have used the CPM certification in their regulation process have also found that it:

• eliminates state exposure to legal liability.
• reduces regulatory administrative tasks and staff time.
• eliminates costs associated with creating and maintaining a psychometrically valid examination.
• provides a streamlined mechanism for licensure and re-licensure.

Using the CPM as the basis for licensure shifts the responsibility and liability for all aspects of certification, including the ongoing psychometric evaluation of the written examination, to the North American Registry of Midwives.

• 98 percent of people now alive were born at home.
• Many countries that advocate home delivery have lower infant and maternal mortality rates than the United States.
• A study of 1,146 cases of both physician and direct-entry attended elective home birth in California revealed that rated of medical complications,  perinatal morbidity and mortality were lower than the California averages.
• Among the industrialized countries of the world, the ones with the best outcomes in terms of low mortalities and morbidities associated with birth are those with the largest proportions of midwives.
• One in four birth is a cesarean with many hospitals reporting as high as one in three births. This represents a 400% increase in less than a decade with no related improvement in the infant mortality and morbidity rates.
• In a matched population study of 2,092 home and hospital births…the hospital group had six times more fetal distress, three times more maternal hemorrhage, 3.7 times more infants in need of resuscitation, four times higher neonatal infection, lower Apgar scores and the hospital group had 30 permanent birth injuries.

The home birth group had no such injuries.

Who Qualifies for Home Birth?

• Mothers who want VBAC births who are in the low risk category.
• First time mothers who fall into the low-risk category (do not have diabetes, disease..) high blood pressure, active tuberculosis, epilepsy, heart disease, kidney
• Second, third, fourth or more…time mothers in the low risk category.
• Mothers ranging from 16 to ? years of age.
• Mothers with insurance, mothers without insurance.• Families who want to be in charge of their birth experience.
• Families who want to be assured of a safe natural birth with as little intervention as possible.
• Home births increased 300% between 1973 and 1980. The biggest contributors to this increase are not the poor or uneducated families but come from the American middle class.