A writer who’s expecting meets one of the pioneers of the home birth movement, and considers whether to have her baby at home or in a hospital:
When I reached my due date, an ultrasound estimated that my baby weighed 9.4 pounds. I didn’t have gestational diabetes and had gained an average amount of weight, and fetal tests showed my baby was thriving. But the baby’s estimated size, combined with the fact that he hadn’t yet descended into my pelvis, worried my midwife.
She wanted the baby out by 41 weeks, and to my surprise, she suggested I consider going straight to surgery without labor. She sent me to be evaluated by a doctor she worked with. ‘One way or another, this baby will be a C-section,’ he said.
I wanted to avoid induction or surgery, so eight days postdate, I drank castor oil, said to be a homeopathic labor inducer, and it worked.
“Ina May Gaskin and the Battle for at-Home Births.” — Samantha M. Shapiro, New York Times Magazine
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