Mothers-to-Be Saying No to Modern Medicine

Natural Childbirth at Home

Supporters of home birth say the experience of bearing a child is enhanced when kept intensely personal and completely natural.

Laura Shanley, shown here with first child John in 1978, has given birth to all four of her children at home and says it's what childbirth is "supposed to be."

(Courtesy Laura Shanley)

"I felt like I'd touched the eternal, when you look back at your baby and your hands are the first to touch her," Shanley said. "I mean, this experience will carry me through the rest of my life."

Choosing home birth could be considered the polar opposite of choosing the increasingly common and popular C-section. It's how one in three American women have given birth. In some circles, the procedure has been called "too posh to push."

"It's major abdominal surgery," Lake said. "I mean, some women are justifying, you know, 'Oh, because I want to avoid the pain of labor.' They want to have C-sections, and I can see the appeal on a certain level, because women are working -- we're busy, we are trying to fit everything into our lives."

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When Something Goes Wrong

Many modern women who plan an unassisted birth choose an available hospital as a backup plan. But home births don't always have happy endings.

Some woman who choose not to take advantage of the latest medical interventions say they have been socially tainted when something goes wrong with a home birth.

After three successful unassisted births and before the fourth, Shanley had a son with a rare heart problem who died just hours after being born at home.

"If you have a baby that's born at home, and especially in an unassisted birth, regardless of the fact that the coroner said, 'This baby would not have survived,' you know, there are still people that will blame me for my baby's death," Shanley said. "And that's just something that I have to accept.

Abby Epstein, the director of Lake's documentary, said she planned on having her first child at home, but complications gave the film an unexpectedly dramatic climax.

"We didn't know how fast the labor was going to be," she said. "My midwife came over and said, 'you're four centimeters, you're having this baby.'"

The baby was breech and Epstein had to be rushed to the hospital, luckily just one tension-filled cab ride away. Both mother and baby were fine.