Unassisted Homebirth Video

Many thanks to my friend Kathy for posting this! I saw it this morning and watched it in pieces over the course of the morning and afternoon. Just wonderful! I thought I knew birth "up close and personal," but this one really takes the cake. Some midwifery or medical school needs to scoop up this gem pronto for use in teaching about birth.

Jaime's Birth 

Wouldn't it be lovely if med schools used videos like these to teach new doctors about birth?

I loved this because it is just a grand picture of natural, physiologic birth - birth as it should be. Loved the position, loved the hands-off nature of the birth, loved the encouragement of the surrounding friends/family... perfect.

This birth was titled as "unassisted," so I am assuming that there was no official midwife present, but the (unseen) woman who was talking to the mama did, in my opinion, act as a midwife in the place of the midwife - talking to the mother, coaching her, encouraging her. If she is not a midwife, she should be! I would be interested in knowing more about the actual dynamics present - was she a student midwife? A doula with midwifery aspirations? A woman who doesn't yet know her calling but will some day be a midwife? Interesting.

I will admit that not having intermittent fetal monitoring did make me nervous - or would have if I hadn't already known there was a good outcome. I suppose that it is because both of our babies have had problems with heart decels during second stage - one of them seriously - so I'm not personally comfortable without some sort of monitoring. What do you think?

I did love that second stage was so non-hurried... in many hospital births, unfortunately, the staff would have been yelling at the woman "Push! Push! Push! One! Two! Three!" This was lovely.

I loved one very amusing quote from the video (this isn't exact; I'm going from memory) - the woman coaching said something along the lines of, "You're looking just great! (Pause) Well, not literally." That cracked me up.

Also on the amusing side was my four-year-old, who was sitting in the room while I watched the video: "Mommy, she sounds like a jet plane getting ready to take off." Loved it.

The sounds this mama made while pushing brought back a ton of memories for me, because I remember making the exact same sounds.... pushing is not a fun time for me. But this birth showed me - again - how beautiful it can be!

Thank you for sharing your birth with us! Congratulations!!