Three perspectives

A Mother’s Perspective

My support for home births stems from my belief that women should have the right to choose where they want to give birth. Childbirth is a life-changing experience and can either be affirming or devastating.

Women should have access to information on home births, birth center births (not affiliated with hospitals) and hospital births so they can make informed decisions about where to give birth. After doing extensive research on the subject, I decided that I wanted to have a water birth. In Columbia, the only places a woman can have a water birth are at Whole Health Birth Center or at home. After visiting the birth center and talking with Dr. Laurel Walter, my husband and I decided to birth at Whole Health. It was the best decision we made about the birth of our child. It was an incredible experience.

However, my birth choice doesn’t have to be every woman’s birth choice.

Women need to be free to decide where to give birth based on what they are comfortable with, whether that is in a hospital, in their bathtub, or at a birth center.

­— Susan Renoe, assistant director, MU Office of Undergraduate Research, Columbia

A Future Nurse-Midwife’s Perspective

In the summer of 2003 my partner Chad and I discovered that we were going to be parents. At that time I was registered to begin a two-year course at a midwifery school. It was too large of a commitment and I alternately enrolled in a doula course, postponing my midwifery education. I am currently enrolled as a pre-clinical nursing student at MU, and I have future plans to obtain my master’s in nursing and become a certified nurse-midwife.

I was asked why I am so passionate about birth, particularly home birth, and it all boils down to my belief that birth is a natural, healthy, physiological function that is powerful, beautiful and should be respected and nurtured, not controlled. Our society portrays pregnancy as an illness, and labor/birth as a painful and frightening procedure that needs to be medically managed. Our culture tells mothers that it is safer and less painful to have a caesarean than it is to have vaginal births. Having my daughter in the security and privacy of my home with my partner was the most astounding experience I have ever had. My body had all the tools necessary to bring forth that life. Looking into Ukiah’s eyes for the first time finalized my mission in life: to help support women and their families in this beautiful, natural process of birth, delivery and life.

— Danielle Maness, future nurse-midwife, Columbia

A Doctor’s Perspective

After serving, observing and attending births in three states, in seven hospitals, in three birth centers and in countless homes, I chose to have my baby at home — primarily out of concern for her. I wanted her to be gently treated and physically safe. I understood that anything could happen, and it was possible that she would die because she was not in a hospital. I also knew that if I chose physician care in a hospital, she could die because she wasn’t at home. The statistics point clearly to better outcomes at home with a midwife.

When it is time for my grandchildren to be born, I want my daughter to have the same options I had, and more. I want the same thing for all the daughters in Missouri.

Some days, my daughter says she wants to be a midwife. I cannot stand the possibility that she would be driven from the state or imprisoned for her work. Or worse, that she would work at a noble calling and some part of her would believe the state of Missouri — that she is a danger to the women she serves and deserves to be punished. I am outraged that midwives practice under this burden when we should be honoring them, thanking them and supporting their work.

I care about the health of women and their babies. I see Missouri’s statistics and know they could be better. I believe that midwives could be a part of the process of helping more women in Missouri be the healthy, living mothers of healthy, living babies.

— Elizabeth Allemann, family practice M.D., Columbia