Hi! I’m so glad you are interested in home-birthing and gentle birthing! This is the actual checklist I used for my own home birth, and at the bottom there you’ll see 4 items that were my absolute “Go-to’s” during labor and postpartum. Keep in mind these 4 products can be used during labor and postpartum for almost any type of birth! If you haven’t already seen my IGTV explaining more in depth the products I used, please head over to my instagram account and give it a listen!
Witch Hazel spray 
Sleeping mask 
Herbal heating pillows
Keep reading for my thoughts on home birthing and more…
(Vitamin K drops on my list are from Mary Ruth’s Organics on Instagram – these are used in replacement of a vitamin K shot being administered to baby)
I’d also like to briefly mention a few things about home-birthing:
The most important “thing” you’ll need is your Birthing Team!
It’s important to remember that what makes a birth special are your surroundings, more specifically the people you decide to surround yourself with. I chose to have my incredible doula, who was with me during my first daughter’s birth, a midwife and a nurse. My husband was also present and NO ONE else. I did not want my space to be crowded or busy. I wanted my birthing space to be as calm and quiet as possible. I wanted women there who understood what I was going through, and I wanted to feel loved and supported the entire time.
As my husband would say, the doula is the most important investment you’ll make in a birth. As much as my husband supported me, there is something very comforting in having a woman there who has lived through the same exact experience. So even though I didn’t put Doula on the home birth checklist, having one would be an absolute MUST for me! I could never have powered through this birth without my wonderful doula.
Although painful, I would never have had it any other way…
I made sure to write my birthing story blog post as soon as I birthed, because I wanted the feelings to be as raw as possible. Having said that, as painful as my birth was because of a posterior baby, my home-birth was absolutely magical, empowering and life-changing. Knowing my own mother had birthed 6 times at home made me feel so much more connected to all the mother’s before me who had experienced the same. Home births are becoming much more common, and ladies are more outspoken of their choices to home birth and water birth. The main reasons to birth gently are so the mother feels safe, secure, loved and heard. The mother feels free to move, eat and grunt & scream as she pleases.
The reasons I chose to water birth & home birth are I didn’t want to be subjected to unnecessary IV drips and surgical cuts (episiotomies) when I knew I could birth my baby without all the interventions which caused me so much trauma and depression with my first born. And I say this all the time, but I truly believe every woman, regardless of how you choose to birth, deserves a birth as free, loved and as spiritual as her.
