Danielle Repp's blog

We are a citizen-led coalition of home birth families, midwives, doctors & advocates who have come together to work toward a better, safer homebirth system.

“Just because there are a few bad CPMs out there doesn’t mean that all CPMs should be vilified,” is a statement I have often read/heard when getting into discussions about home birth midwifery. I wholly disagree with that statement. Here’s why."

I’ve recently learned of yet another baby dying during a home birth. This was a planned, midwife-attended home VBAC (also known as HBAC, home birth after cesarean).

I sometimes wonder what my feelings about home birth would be now if we would have gone through with our home birth plans.

Similar to my home birth journey is my vaccine journey. I was once opposed to childhood vaccinations, then realized I had been sucked into misinformation about vaccine safety.

Let’s be clear: "5 minutes to the hospital" does not exist. Even if a woman actually does live within a couple miles of a hospital, there’s more to it than that.

Once upon a time... there was a very judgmental birth doula.

Our first birth was in a hospital and it ended in a cesarean section after almost three hours of pushing with a “sunny side up” baby. The second time, we were excited that we could afford a home birth with midwives.

For those that need or want a cesarean section, the option to have a gentle cesarean birth – or certain aspects of it – is quite appealing to many moms-to-be.

When we were pregnant with our first baby, we wanted to give birth at home. It’s a long story, but here are my top 5 reasons we ended up choosing hospital birth.

A topic I see discussed online quite a lot is that of HBAC, which stands for home birth after cesarean...

I think the film The Business of Being Born is a dangerous piece of propaganda full of misinformation; it adds to the heaping pile of nonsense that makes women feel bad about themselves for not giving birth a certain way.

A reader on the babyMed Facebook page asked

Doula Dani's last installment on midwife certification and types of midwives in the United States. Read here to find out all about the NARM certified midwife.

The American Midwifery Certification Board is the gold standard for midwifery certification. AMCB requires the highest level of education and training standards for midwives in the USA. You can go to AMCB’s website, type in your midwife’s name and voila! You can instantly see if your midwife is currently certified, the status of her certification and any disciplinary issues.

One of the reasons home birth midwifery in our country is trickier than other first world countries is because in the United States we have several different types of midwives.

My philosophy of childbirth is ever evolving. For me, I believe birth is a natural, normal process and I choose to avoid intervention unless it is necessary.

In January 2014, the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) published a study in the Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health and a press release was written to announce it. It was the press release heard ‘round the (home birth) world! Unfortunately, it was full of misinformation.