Cammy Benton, M.D., sits quietly in her formal gown as her friend Angela labors in the privacy and comfort of her own home. Photo courtesy of Bethany Wilkinson.
A doctor’s thoughts on home birth: Cammy Benton, M.D., is a C-section mom of three and a beloved family practitioner based in Charlotte, North Carolina. She’s the owner of Benton Integrative Medicine. Until a few days ago she had never witnessed a home birth. Inspired and awed by the experience of watching birth unfold safely and naturally at home, she wrote up these doctor’s thoughts on home birth and has generously agreed to share them with us here.
A Doctor’s Thoughts On Home Birth
By Cammy Benton, M.D.
I experienced my first home birth last night.
I’m an M.D., but I went to be part of the experience of being present as a friend, not a doctor, wanting to watch homebirth midwives in action.
I was so lucky I made it!
Angela, a third time mom, went into labor right after I got back from vacation.
I was on my way to an event when they called, so I arrived in a semi-formal gown and pearls to the home birth.
She delivered beautifully three hours later and I still made it to my event.
She made it all look so easy.
My births were C-sections, and were anything but easy
I had three C sections.
I was told by my mainstream hospital birth team that my first baby was going to be “too big.”
They predicted the baby would weigh at least 10 pounds.
It was the hospital midwife in the obstetrician group who told me at 40 weeks that there was “no way” I could deliver this baby naturally.
They scared me into believing that I could not have a vaginal birth.
Two days later I had a scheduled C-section.
But my daughter wasn’t “too big.”
She wasn’t big at all.
She weighed a healthy 8 pounds 3 ounces: a normal, healthy, perfect weight.
No one apologized.
They didn’t admit that they miscalculated her size.
No one mentioned that the ultrasounds I had, as ultrasounds often are, gave inaccurate sizing, to say nothing of ultrasounds possibly causing harm.
No one suggested that my C-section, like as many as 600,000 others a year, according to my colleague Stuart Fischbein, M.D., may very likely have been unnecessary.
I didn’t know then what I know now and I trusted the doctors with my whole heart.
So when I was told the same story with Baby #2 (“too big to deliver vaginally), I believed it. Again.
There wasn’t even a question about having a VBAC (Vaginal Birth after Cesarean) with Baby #3 because, “You can never have a dangerous VBAC after two C-sections.”
Which is what doctors say, even though it isn’t true.
As a doctor, I was afraid of vaginal birth
I was actually celebrating inside because I was still traumatized from the obstetric training we received in residency.
I saw some scary, awful things. Hospital deliveries can and do go bad. The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world and inexcusably high infant mortality rates.
I didn’t realize that this is because of an overly medicalized birth system. Our system caters to profits over people. The greed, as well as the institutionalized racism in the practice of medicine, hurt us all.
But I thought it was because birth is dangerous, an emergency, an accident waiting to happen.
I was thankful to never see a mom die during labor, but I saw other things that made me cringe and fear delivery and fear birth.
Abusing patients
I saw nurses and doctors yelling at patients, as well as family medicine residents being abused by angry, stressed-out doctors.
Many nurses and doctors were amazing and caring and some weren’t.
But even with the good ones, the delivery practices in the hospital work against birth: Women are told to “lie down” and “stay in bed,” in the hospital instead of being given the space to what their body and the baby want to do, which may include walking, being on all fours, swaying, or, yes, lying in bed.
I saw so many women on their backs in stirrups given episiotomies, which is a surgical cut that does more harm than good.
The doctors and nurses in the hospital brought fear and prejudice into every room, mistakenly believing that the baby would lose all its blood if we didn’t cut the cord fast enough.
Now that one makes me laugh.
I can’t believe we were all taught that!
Just so you know, science supports delayed cord cutting (it’s best to wait until the cord stops pulsating) so the baby can get all their own blood, nutrients, and stem cells from the placenta.
We did collect stem cells from the cord blood back then so we knew it was rich in healing powers!
Yet we stopped the flow as soon as possible because my supervisors, colleagues, and I didn’t seem to know the direction of the blood flow back then: out of the placenta into the baby where it belongs!
I guess we believed all the baby’s blood would drain out if we didn’t cut the cord immediately!
I’m 46 years old and graduated from medical school more than twenty years ago. So many things we did then were not rooted in science, common sense, or best practices.
I was traumatized by this toxicity and fear and I carried that trauma through to my own pregnancy and deliveries.
I wish I knew then what I know now.
To this day, obstetricians, hospital midwives, and labor and delivery nurses (as Dr. Margulis explores in her investigation of how for-profit medicine and corporate greed affect birth practices) continue to get it wrong.
A doctor’s thoughts on home birth: back to Angela’s birth
So last night, since I wasn’t practicing medicine but just being present and holding space, I did what I could do, which was pray.
I prayed for God to wrap his arms of safety around the mom, whom I adore. Silently, I asked God to bless and protect the baby who would soon greet the world.
In the meantime, I watched the relaxed nature of the midwives as they supported Angela.
Trust your body, you got this
“Trust your body,” they reminded her gently when a contraction felt like too much.
“Where do you want to be?” they asked her softly when she felt uncomfortable.
“How do you feel?” they said quietly, listening to the answer and helping her find a new way to be comfortable by rubbing her shoulders, kissing her forehead, holding her hand.
No cervical checks.
Not once.
Mom was essentially meditating herself during the contractions.
When it was time, she reached down and delivered her own baby in the water.
She pushed when her body called for it.
I wouldn’t even call it a push.
She just relaxed and let her body expel the baby with some help from her deep core of strength.
It was miraculous.
The midwives were amazing
The midwives brought a measured calm.
They were there when Angela needed them, but stepped back when she needed space.
Homebirth midwives help moms have an experience they could never have in a hospital.
Could harm come to the mom and baby?
Is it safe to have a home birth?
As a doctor, safety is one of my first concerns.
Obstetricians should attend complicated pregnancies and deliveries.
Home birth safer for low-risk moms
But statistically it’s safer for a low-risk mom to have an out of hospital birth, especially when homebirth midwives and doctors work as a team instead of as antagonists.
A mom who wants a safe vaginal birth will have a better experience if midwives deliver her babies, either at home, at a freestanding birthing center, or at the hospital. Especially if she finds hospital midwives who practice like homebirth midwives not like midwives trained like OBs.
(Birth folks have a term for bullying interventionist midwives: “medwives.”)
In Iceland, medical doctors in training watch three midwife-attended births before they see an OB deliver a baby!
But in America, preceptors teach their medical students to belittle midwives and fear home birth.
A doctor’s thoughts on home birth: birth as nature intends it
Gratitude fills me. I’ve finally had the opportunity to see birth as nature intends it.
Angela radiated strength in the face of pain.
I watched her deliver her own baby, with her husband and two midwives by her side.
I watched her and her family meet Hazel Faith for the first time, their faces radiant and curious.
When I was pregnant with my daughters, I just didn’t know.
I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t do my own research.
After my daughters were born, all three of them, I was so drugged up on pain relievers that I wasn’t even mentally present.
The doctors tied my hands down. I didn’t even get to hold my babies after they were born.
Instead, they were whisked away from me.
I feel like our conventional medical system robbed of the opportunity to have those special moments with my babies after birth.
It was hours before I would hold them in my arms.
Watching a gentle home birth helped me heal my birth trauma
Being at Angela’s birth helped heal me. It helped me let go of my surgical, clinical birthing experiences, and my time as a medical resident when our mentors taught us to fear birth.
As I was quietly present for Angela, her birth became my birth, my opportunity to feel that experience, to imagine my own babies coming into the world that gently and holding them that close to me.
Angela’s birth was so powerful and empowering.
Which is the kind of birth every woman deserves.
A doctor’s thoughts on home birth: That moment of ecstasy and relief just after the baby is born is a moment every woman deserves. Photo courtesy of Amber Denae Birth Services/Photography.
Want to read more about pregnancy and home birth?
Here are 45 reasons no woman should have a home birth (don’t let the title fool you)
This mom had her baby by herself in the bath tub. On purpose!
In this post, 6 moms share their secrets about positive pregnancy
You need to know the science behind why ultrasounds aren’t safe
Here’s why having a C-section **IS** actually a big deal
And here a doctor weighs in on vaccine questions
Published: July 22, 2019
Last update: April 18, 2024
That invitation to this miraculously normal human event, turned out to be an opportunity to heal. To heal from my training experiences, to vicariously relive a natural birth and heal my guilt and what I missed when giving birth to my own girls.
Welcome to the enlightened side Cammy. It’s very hard to battle the mindset of the obstetric universe (especially in North Carolina) but it is oh so worth it!
Thank you for this beautiful sharing.
Fear of birth has made the USA a huge profit making entity with little regard or respect for the Midwifery Model of Care and a woman’s right to educate and prepare herself to bring her baby forth into this world. True midwives (not “Medwives”) are faithful to their calling and change the world every minute of every day with love and kindness. I am proud to be one of them?
here’s the take home… you have three healthy kids…and you have an intact pelvic floor… in 20 years of obgyn, I saw probably 30 women with dead babies all in the attempt for the “real mom experience”…consider yourself blessed…
James, that is a very misleading and demeaning comment. An undisturbed vaginal birth at home often results in zero trauma, precisely because we allow the woman to listen to her body and push when she feels the urge rather than forcing her to “purple push”. More importantly, your comment disrespects the natural (and valid) desire of women to birth as they wish rather than to be sliced open. You are telling a woman how she should feel and that she can put up with her scarred abdomen and warped birthing experiences, and be grateful for them. As with all aspects of maternity care and birthing, there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all.
I can’t imagine how many countless mothers suffered under your care with that dismissive and disrespectful attitude James. Megalomaniacs like you should not be allowed within ten feet of a pregnant woman.
James,
Thanks for mansplaining. Women love being told, “suck it up, your pain doesn’t matter, all that matters is you have a healthy baby.”
I swallowed that shit and wound up having panic attacks. This was after my train wreck of a birth experience which led to a c-section and then a repeat c-section because I was too terrified to go through it again. The panic attacks, (before I connected the dots in therapy about where they originated) also caused me to stop breast feeding my second child early. I couldn’t do it, I was panicking.
Given your insensitive nature, I would “consider myself blessed” to not have you anywhere near me as a woman giving birth. I bet you were a real comfort for the families of those dead babies you speak of.
Are you able to reflect on each of these deaths and figure out what happened and why? If you’ve seen 30 babies in 20 years die, thats 30 more than almost any midwife in practice for the same amount of time.
Until we are able to address what is causing these horrifying statistics that you are right to be upset about, its probably not helpful to use it against moms who are having better results than you are, with much less help.
Indeed you are correct – as stated in the article above, the United States has some of the WORST outcomes when it comes to mother and baby mortality.
But we must ask ourselves WHY.
While any GOOD midwife will tell you how important it is to be prepared for and deal with urgent complications, I have yet to meet one who has lost a baby due to lack of care on her part.
James, you are clearly a dumbass. I hope you are no longer harming women.
Thank you for sharing your experience. My first child was born at the hospital. It was a traumatic experience. With my second baby I decided to have a home birth and it was a best decision I have ever made. My home birth experience was very similar to the one you described in your article. Beautiful, warm and empowering.
Thanks Dr. Benton. I agree with you. You inspire me.
I am a huge advocate that women should birth wherever they feel secure and loved, surrounded by a true team of people who will support and encourage her in this amazing work our bodies were created to do. I’ve had four beautiful home births with midwives; with each one I’ve been able to relax and fully focus on the job at hand, confident that help and wisdom is a few steps away when I need it.
And yet, when I explain my passion for informing women about their options, and tell how women who are well prepared (the things you list in your blog ‘Everyone I know had a C-section’) can have an amazing, empowering birthing experience, and that women who have elected to have a CS for no medical reason have missed out on this empowerment, I get ridiculed for being insensitive! In one recent conversation I was told that I should be careful because some women haven’t worked through their C-section experiences…..THAT is precisely why I am passionate about letting women know! And yes, some physiological births are traumatising as well, but women who make informed decisions and feel involved in the choices made, are less likely to be in that situation. [I am a midwife working in an Australian hospital with a CS rate of at least 67%, most of them unnecesareans.]
James, you are clearly a dumbass. I hope you are no longer harming women.