Sunday: Tulsa couple joins home birth trend
BY NOUR HABIB World Scene Writer
Saturday, January 12, 2013
On Christmas Eve, Rachel Driver gave birth to a baby girl.
Jocelyn Lily Driver, at a healthy 6 pounds 14 ounces and 20½ inches, was delivered into a tub in the living room of the Drivers’ apartment.
Rachel and Jon Driver, whose own mothers had some home births, opted to have their first child at home.
“We wanted to have as natural a birth as possible, without unnecessary interventions,” Rachel Driver said before the birth.
The decision meant that there would be no option of pain medications, which she acknowledged was hard. Although at one point during her contractions Driver fleetingly understood why women ask for an epidural, the birth went much better than she expected.
“I had psyched myself up for something horrible,” she said. “But it was really great.”
Although Jon Driver can’t compare his daughter’s birth to a hospital birth because he’d never experienced it, he liked having the baby at home because he felt like he was able to offer more help to his wife.
“I was able to rub her back, help her, get her water if she needed it, instead of being the middleman who had to ask permission for everything at a hospital,” he said.
The couple agreed, given the choice, they’d do it at home again the next time.
Why a home birth?
Home births have been on the rise in the U.S. since 2004, according to 2012 data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Home births in the country rose by 29 percent from 2004 to 2009, according to the data. According to a 2010 Tulsa World story, in Oklahoma, births attended by midwives that occur outside of a hospital increased 54 percent from 2004 to 2007.
Read more in Sunday's World.
Associated Images:
John and Rachel Driver with their newborn daughter Joscelyn, at their apartment in Tulsa. Rachel used an alternative birth method to deliver Joscelyn in their living room. MICHAEL WYKE/Tulsa World
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