Get out of the hospital

Posted: August 31, 2025 in Pregnancy

There’s a quiet revolution happening, not just in how women birth, but where. More and more mothers are choosing not to go to the hospital in the first place. They’re staying home. Or they’re walking into intentionally designed birth centers (spaces where their care is personal, intimate, and grounded in trust.) These aren’t reckless decisions. They’re deeply informed and intuitive ones. Rooted in a desire to be seen, heard, and held during one of life’s most sacred thresholds.

For the majority of pregnancies, birth outside of a hospital can be just as safe (or safer), and often far more supportive of the spiritual, emotional, and physiological needs of both mother and baby.

The truth: midwifery-led birth is safe for most pregnancies

Around 85% of pregnancies are considered low-risk and do not require medical intervention. According to the World Health Organization and multiple U.S. studies, midwifery care is a safe, evidence-based model for most pregnancies when systems are well integrated and transfer to higher-level care is accessible if needed.

A large 2019 meta-analysis found no significant difference in perinatal or neonatal mortality between hospital births and planned home births in well-resourced countries. Countries like the Netherlands, Canada, and the UK (where midwifery is embedded into national systems) consistently demonstrate excellent outcomes.

In the U.S., while systemic gaps remain, studies show that planned out-of-hospital births with licensed midwives (especially Certified Nurse Midwives or CPMs in legal states) can lead to lower rates of cesareans, inductions, and epidurals - with excellent health outcomes for these mothers and their babies.

This is not fringe. It’s a return.

More women are returning to home and birth center births

The trend is rising - and fast:

Home births jumped 22% from 2019 to 2020 alone.
In 2022, over 46,000 families in the U.S. chose home birth, a 56% increase from 2016.
Birth center births continue to climb as more women look for autonomy and natural birth support.

What’s driving this? It’s not just about avoiding medical interventions. It’s about reclaiming birth as a personal, sacred, embodied experience.

What each provider offers

Understanding the difference between your birth team options can help you choose what aligns with your values:

OB/GYN (Obstetrician–Gynecologist)

Specializes in pathology and surgery. OBs are trained to handle high-risk situations and perform necessary interventions. In emergencies, their expertise saves lives. But most pregnancies don’t require surgical or pharmacological care.

Midwife (CNM, CPM, LM)

Midwives are trained in physiological birth and offer holistic, family-centered care. They monitor safety while also prioritizing emotional well-being and trust in the process. They spend more time with you during prenatal visits, offer in-labor support, and honor your rhythms and preferences. Midwives are guardians of normal, physiological birth.

Birth Doula

A doula offers continuous emotional, physical, and informational support. They aren’t medical professionals. Rather, they hold space, comfort, encourage, educate the mother of option, and help the partner feel grounded. I like to say, doulas maintains the humanity in birth settings. They keep the human aspects alive and not disregarded. Studies show that having a doula lowers the risk of cesarean and improves maternal satisfaction.

When midwives and doulas work together, the result is care that nourishes your body and soul.

The physiology of birth - when left uninterrupted

Birth is not just a physical act - it’s hormonal, emotional, energetic, spiritual.

In a home or birth center environment, the conditions for physiological birth are more easily preserved:

Dim lighting
Privacy
Familiar sounds and smells
No strangers entering the room
The freedom to move, eat, vocalize, or rest naturally

This is the setting where oxytocin (the hormone of love, bonding, and labor) flows freely. Where the neocortex quiets. Where primal wisdom emerges.

When we remove unnecessary monitoring, interruptions, and fear-based protocols, we make space for the body (and baby) to do what they were made (and know how) to do.

Spiritual birth: honoring the rite of passage

I’ve written before about how our modern system has stripped birth of its soul. In trying to make it efficient, we’ve made it impersonal.

But when you stay home or choose a birth center you give yourself permission to remember:

Birth is not something to “get through.”
It’s a rite of passage for the mother and the baby.
It deserves sacred preparation and sacred witnessing.

When you are seen, held, and respected through this portal… you don’t just birth a baby. You emerge as a new version of yourself. That kind of transformation requires presence, not pressure.

And your environment matters.

Birth is a profoundly spiritual and psychological event. When protected and respected, it sets the stage for a lifetime of trust, connection, and resilience. When disrupted, it can seed trauma and disconnection at the cellular level—for both the mother and the baby.
- APPPAH (Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health)

This is why we don’t just need birth to be “safe” in a clinical sense. We need it to be sacred. To be whole.

What calm birth really looks like

Let’s paint the picture:

You’re laboring in your home.
The lights are low.
Your playlist is humming.
Your partner is massaging your back.
Your midwife is gently checking heart tones.
Your doula is reminding you to breathe.
No IV poles. No beeping monitors. No strangers.

You feel safe.
You feel seen.
You feel powerful... maybe you even roar like lioness.

This is not a fantasy. It’s a reality that more and more women are choosing. And it’s available to you, too.

So why get out of the hospital?

Because for most pregnancies, you don’t need to be there in the first place. Hospitals are for when people are very ill or something is seriously wrong.

Labor and birth are the natural response and next phase of pregnancy.

You deserve to be the authority of your body.
You deserve care that centers you, not protocols.
You deserve to birth in a place that honors the sacred.

Birth is not an emergency waiting to happen. It is a miracle waiting to unfold.

If you are low-risk, and feel called to birth outside of the hospital, know that it is safe (or safer), supported, and spiritually sound. You are not alone. Thousands of women are returning to this ancient path… and discovering that what they really needed wasn’t a sterile room, but a circle of intelligent wise care, a home filled with intention, and the deep knowing that their body was built for this.