A friend recently stumped me with a health-related trivia question. Who was the first president to be born in a hospital?
The answer, posted below, left me thinking about what a relatively new phenomenon hospital births really are. My colleague Julie Scelfo explores the issue further in today’s Home section, finding that the home birth appears to be making a surprising comeback. Since the 1950s, she explains, the overwhelming majority of American women have chosen to give birth in hospitals, the place the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says is one of the safest places for childbirth.
But midwives and childbirth educators don’t always agree and have embarked on a national campaign to advocate for regulation and licensure of certified professional midwives. They argue that birth doesn’t have to be a medical event, and that when women do opt for hospital births, they often lose control of the process and many end up with unnecessary C-sections.
“In your home you’re able to move around,” said Élan McAlister, founder of Choices in Childbirth, a four-year-old non-profit educational group that publishes The New York Guide to a Healthy Birth. “If you believe birth is not a medical emergency, it is the ideal place because it’s the place you can really let go and follow what your body wants you to do.”
And to answer the trivia question: The first U.S. president born in a hospital was Jimmy Carter.
What do you think about giving birth at home rather than a hospital? Please join the discussion below.