what people think...Homebirth

lots of these floating around, I have to say, I'm enjoying them - this one is fun! (click on the picture to make it big enough to read)

Homebirth upswing in the news again

Amanda Steen/NPR

Shannon Earle holds her new baby Kiera Breen Earle, moments after she was born at their home last year.

You can read about the 29% overall (more for older white women) jump from 2004-2009 on the NPR site, on "All Things Considered", but there is also a handy link where you can listen...nothing soothes me like the clear, melodic and in-depth reporting of NPR.

"It's as safe for women who are at low risk as hospital birth for low-risk women but with significantly reduced rates of preterm birth, low birth weight, unnecessary caesarean sections and also very high rates of maternal satisfaction," says Katherine Prown of The Big Push, which is advocating for legalizing midwives in more states.

Babies born at home were less likely to be born prematurely or underweight, the analysis found. And for many women with uncomplicated pregnancies, home birth can often be a fine alternative, experts say.

Pure, Utter Joy!

This ecstatic photo of a home water birth in Australia, taken by midwife photographer Jane McCrae, is in the running to win National Geographic's Photo 2011 contest, showing the world how utterly joyous birth can be...something to be thankful for, indeed!

The photographer's commentary,

Only a mother can understand the joy of locking eyes with her newborn babe the moment they take their first breath.

After the powerful journey of labor, Natalia embraces her babe for the very first time. Sheer exhilaration, joy and love describes the moment of bringing forth her child. The gentle hand of her midwife, trusting in the innate wisdom of birth

Location: Homebirth. Tumbi Umbi, NSW, Australia

if a pumpkin had a home birth

love it! another facebook share, originally created and posted by Blessed Birth Doula

Telling it like it is

Oh my god - so very funny...if you want to know what home birth is like...at least C. Clifford's experience, read the comic strip - fabulous!

Homebirth Safety: Jennifer Block helps make sense of faulty study findings

Check out Jennifer Block's (awesome author of Pushed) new post, Home Births Under Fire Amid Outcry Over Wax Paper, in The Daily Beast

“Wax Paper” is what home birth supporters have taken to calling a metaanalysis that appears in the September issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. A research method that has come under criticism in the past, a metaanalysis pools together data from several studies, and this one comes to a hotly contested conclusion: that babies are three times more likely to die if born at home, said the study, whose lead author is Joseph Wax, M.D....

...Several researchers and providers are lambasting the study as not only “deeply flawed” but “politically motivated,” the result of “intense medical lobbying.” (See: MOMS legislation introduced to the House last month.) Two independent experts who looked at the study for Time found it “weak and methodologically flawed.” The main criticism of the metaanalysis is its inclusion of old, discredited data that did not distinguish between planned, attended home births and accidentals on the kitchen floor or back seat, which have worse outcomes to be sure. And while the study was presented as being based on “hundreds of thousands of births,” its banner finding, that home birth is “associated with a tripling of the neonatal mortality rate,” is based on just 9,811 home births. And most of those deaths come from said poor data

There is a great recap of studies and ACOG's bias in saying that home birthers are being self-indulgent and unsafe - do check out the whole article. One birthing mom sums it up,

“Women are not merely participants in this process, we are the process. All women want to have healthy babies.”

(I don't know who took the image of the hearts...but it's made from wax paper...the kind of wax paper that's useful! ;-)

take that, lame study on home birth dangers!

Home birth has been in the media a lot lately due to a recent study saying that although home birth is safe for low-risk moms, babies born at home had a 3x greater mortality rate. But how did they get that number? The American College of Nurse-Midwives' (ACNM response is great at picking apart the findings...bottom-line, it was a poorly done compilation.

In part, ACNM president, Holly Powell Kennedy, CNM, PhD, FACNM, FAAN, says the study is flawed because,

They included studies that did not distinguish between planned and unplanned home births. For example, if you had planned a hospital birth, but your labor progressed so quickly that you gave birth before you even made it to the hospital, then you wouldn’t have had a skilled attendant or necessary resources present.

In contrast, a planned home birth means that the woman and her health care provider have determined she is healthy, at low risk for complications, and has the necessary resources in place for a safe birth. By combining the two types of home births, the findings are limited.

Second, a meta-analysis is a way of combining the results of many studies. But in this case, there seems to be no clear reason as to which studies they included versus those they excluded. In fact, they actually did not include the best and by far largest study that's been done—which did not find a higher neonatal mortality rate.

SOS: Save Home Birth in NY!

(DoulaMomma says:
Passing this along - even if it doesn't impact you personally, please consider making your voice heard as someone who cares about preserving options for all birthing women - if it can happen in NY, it can happen in your state too...pass this info along on your blogs, Facebook etc. too please)

ACTION ALERT:

Save Home Birth in New York

We need your help!

At midnight tomorrow, April 30th, the majority of New York City's home birth midwives will no longer be able to practice legally. Unless immediate action is taken by the Governor and the NYS Department of Health the women that these midwives serve will be denied access to a home birth with their chosen provider and these providers will no longer be able to practice legally in NYS.

YOU MUST ACT NOWto save the home birth option for New York Women:

Call:

• 311
• Wendy Saunders, Executive Deputy Commissioner for the NY State Department of Health, appointed by Governor Paterson. 518-474-8390
• Larry Mokhiber, he Secretary of the Board of Midwifery(518-474-3817, extension 130)

And say....

With the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital, half of the licensed, highly trained home birth midwives serving NYC have lost their Written Practice Agreement (WPA). St Vincent's was the only Hospital in the city supportive of a woman's right to choose a home birth and willing to sign a WPA. In the weeks since it's announced closure, these midwives have reached out to hospitals and obstetricians all across the city looking for support, with no success. Please help us to save the homebirth option in New York.

People can also email the Governor at http://www.state.ny.us/governor/contact/GovernorContactForm.php.

We are in our final hours! Please forward this email and help us flood 311 and the Governor's office with calls supporting home birth.

And while you're at it, please sign our petitionsupporting the Midwifery Modernization Act which will remove the WPA from the midwifery law effectively removing this barrier to accessing midwifery care.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/midwifery/

See NYSALM's fact sheet about what the Midwifery Modernization Act Means for You.

We gotta fight for our right to...

Passing along this message - I'll be calling - will you?

LADIES of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA!
WHY WAIT for REFORM THAT MIGHT NOT COME?!
What do you think would happen in every woman in the United States who has any type of maternity coverage called their health care insurer to tell them:
PLEASE CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE INSURER ON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5TH. CALL EARLY IN ...THE DAY!


"I WANT SAFE BIRTHING CHOICES FOR HAVING MY BABY OUTSIDE OF HOSPITAL WITH A CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL MIDWIFE -- AT HOME OR AT A BIRTH CENTER.

WHEN IS YOUR COMPANY GOING TO COVER MY MATERNITY EXPENSES WHERE I WANT TO GIVE BIRTH?"
"I AM PLANNING TO HAVE A BABY NEXT YEAR (OR WHENEVER!) AND I WANT THIS COVERAGE -- SO I'M CALLING YOU & MY EMPLOYER AND MY STATE INSURANCE COMMISSIONER THIS WEEK TO ASK THIS SAME QUESTION & I NEED AN ANSWER BY [ DATE ].

"
What if these insurers were SIMPLY BLASTED with phone calls, faxes, emails, and other contacts? What do you think their response would be?
I don't know -- if we kept it up for about 1 week -- we might actually demonstrate to these huge companies that what women need is important and they need to listen to us! AND it might make Congress sit up & take notice.
And it wouldn't hurt to call your employer's HR department -- remember THEY are the purchasers of these policies -- and be sure that Licensed Midwives, Certified Professional Midwives, and birth outside hospital is covered in ALL STATES.
Don't wait for Congress to MAYBE do this -- DO IT NOW!
"Who ya gonna call?!" -- Always ask for a Case Manager over OB services! NEVER speak to the first person who answer the phone! They are trained to say, "No, that's not covered," or "I don't know."
THEN get the name & direct phone number of the person with whom you spoke.
Let's get it together Ladies -- and DEMONSTRATE OUR BUYING POWER!

"Comparison Shopping has never been more important!'

Joyce Moxley Thomas, MHA, CPM/LM, HCHICertified Professional Midwife/LM239Certified Hypnobabies InstructorCertified Perinatal Massage Therapist
Executive DirectorAmazing Babies Midwifery Education13768 Roswell Ave. #209Chino, CA 91710909-591-2924www.Amazing-Babies.com
AquaNatal Birth Center13768 Roswell Ave. #209Chino, CA 91710909-591-2924www.AquaNatalBirthCenter.com

Hey NBC!

Let NBC know that the viewing public deserves accurate information on birthing options...sign the petition by Choices In Childbirth

(check out background on what all the fuss is about & watch the video here)

Doula care: Midwifery Today interviews Penny Simpkin

Midwifery Modernization Act

This was passed on to me by the midwife who attended my home birth:

Here a link to a petition to remove the requirement for a written practice agreement between a licensed midwife and a physician in New York State.

As many of you know this has been a requirement that is extremely restrictive for both midwives and women who want access to their care.

Urge the NY State Legislature to Support the Midwifery Modernization Act Petition : [ powered by iPe

Source: www.ipetitions.com

Petition Urge the NY State Legislature to Support the Midwifery Modernization Act As midwifery consumers and supporters, we urge the NY State Legislature to support the Midwifery Modernization Act.

best. commercial. ever.

I'd seen this around a little while back (at the always awesome Birth Activist - check out the great commentary comparing US mattress ads to European!) & meant to post it earlier...
Can you imagine a US company showing an actual birth to sell a mattress? Love it!

home as safe as hospital

That's what another study, the largest ever, found about birth. It compares apples to apples, low risk to low risk. It parses the concerns & aspirations of a shift in maternity care in the UK, where the government has pledged to give all women the option of a home birth by the end of this year.
Here's the BBC link where you can also listen to the story. Notice that it says "UK obstetricians welcomed the study..." - one would hope that US OBs welcome it too.

Home births 'as safe as hospital'

The largest study of its kind has found that for low-risk women, giving birth at home is as safe as doing so in hospital with a midwife.

Research from the Netherlands - which has a high rate of home births - found no difference in death rates of either mothers or babies in 530,000 births.

Home births have long been debated amid concerns about their safety.

UK obstetricians welcomed the study - published in the journal BJOG - but said it may not apply universally.

The number of mothers giving birth at home in the UK has been rising since it dipped to a low in 1988. Of all births in England and Wales in 2006, 2.7% took place at home, the most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics showed.

The research was carried out in the Netherlands after figures showed the country had one of the highest rates in Europe of babies dying during or just after birth.

It was suggested that home births could be a factor, as Dutch women are able and encouraged to choose this option. One third do so.

But a comparison of "low-risk" women who planned to give birth at home with those who planned to give birth in hospital with a midwife found no difference in death or serious illness among either baby or mother.

"We found that for low-risk mothers at the start of their labour it is just as safe to deliver at home with a midwife as it is in hospital with a midwife," said Professor Simone Buitendijk of the TNO Institute for Applied Scientific Research.

"These results should strengthen policies that encourage low-risk women at the onset of labour to choose their own place of birth."

Hospital transfer

Low-risk women in the study were those who had no known complications - such as a baby in breech or one with a congenital abnormality, or a previous caesarean section.

Nearly a third of women who planned and started their labours at home ended up being transferred as complications arose - including for instance an abnormal fetal heart rate, or if the mother required more effective pain relief in the form of an epidural.

The NHS is simply not set up to meet the potential demand for home births Louise Silverton Royal College of Midwives

But even when she needed to be transferred to the care of a doctor in a hospital, the risk to her or her baby was no higher than if she had started out her labour under the care of a midwife in hospital.

The researchers noted the importance of both highly-trained midwives who knew when to refer a home birth to hospital as well as rapid transportation.

While stressing the study was the most comprehensive yet into the safety of home births, they also acknowledged some caveats.

The group who chose to give birth in hospital rather than at home were more likely to be first-time mothers or of an ethnic minority background - the risk of complications is higher in both these groups.

The study did not compare the relative safety of home births against low-risk women who opted for doctor rather than midwife-led care. This is to be the subject of a future investigation.

Home option

But Professor Buitendijk said the study did have relevance for other countries like the UK with a highly developed health infrastructure and well-trained midwives.

Women need to be counselled on the unexpected emergencies which can arise during labour and can only be managed in a maternity hospital RCOG

In the UK, the government has pledged to give all women the option of a home birth by the end of this year. At present just 2.7% of births in England and Wales take place at home, but there are considerable regional variations.

Louise Silverton, deputy general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, said, the study was "a major step forward in showing that home is as safe as hospital, for low risk women giving birth when support services are in place.

"However, to begin providing more home births there has to be a seismic shift in the way maternity services are organised. The NHS is simply not set up to meet the potential demand for home births, because we are still in a culture where the vast majority of births are in hospital.

"There also has to be a major increase in the number of midwives because they are the people who will be in the homes delivering the babies."

Mary Newburn, of the National Childbirth Trust, said: "This makes a significant contribution to the growing body of reassuring evidence that suggests offering women a choice of place of birth is entirely appropriate."

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) said it supported home births "in cases of low-risk pregnancies provided the appropriate infrastructures and resources are present to support such a system.

But it added: "Women need to be counselled on the unexpected emergencies - such as cord prolapse, fetal heart rate abnormalities, undiagnosed breech, prolonged labour and postpartum haemorrhage - which can arise during labour and can only be managed in a maternity hospital.

"Such emergencies would always require the transfer of women by ambulance to the hospital as extra medical support is only present in hospital settings and would not be available to them when they deliver at home."

The Department of Health said that giving more mothers-to-be the opportunity to choose to give birth at home was one of its priority targets for 2009/10.

A spokesman said: "All Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) have set out plans for implementing Maternity Matters to provide high-quality, safe maternity care for women and their babies."

if your're in IL

please consider lending your support to midwifery legislation in IL: they need supporters on Tuesday, March 3rd at the State Capitol regarding the Home Birth Safety Act. A lot of support is mobilizing against CPM (Certified Practical Midwives) licensure...for info, go here: http://homebirthishealthy.blogspot.com/ and consider calling your legislators

Erykah Badu tweets home birth

...here's the story on MTV.com Congrats to the family!

Erykah Badu, Jay Electronica Blog Child's Birth In Real Time On Twitter

'Morning, I'm in labor,' soul singer tweets on Sunday.

By Jayson Rodriguez

Artists have always done strange things to win our attention, right? And lately, we've seen how musicians are using micro-blog site Twitter as an über-marketing tool. This weekend, one pair of artists took things further than we expected, as Erykah Badu and her beau, upstart rapper Jay Electronica, sent tweets of their daughter's birth in real time.

The ever enigmatic Badu kick-started the experience, telling the more than 4,500 followers of her Twitter blog, "Fatbellybella": "Morning, I'm in labor."

The Grammy-winning singer gave updates on the time between her contractions before going AWOL. Presumably Badu was, you know, giving birth when she disappeared. But Electronica kept sending updates throughout the birth on his page, "JayElectronica."

Badu and Electronica chose to forgo delivery in a hospital and instead opted for a home birth with a midwife. According to updates, it looked like the midwife may have been running a bit late.

"Labor has begun," Electronica wrote. "Everybody stand back. No hospitals. No doctors. No medicine. We're waiting for the midwife to show."

While waiting for the midwife, Electronica described the vibe and sent messages to rapper Talib Kweli ("I'm build for this sh--") and producer Just Blaze ("You should be here").

Electronica also compared the atmosphere to a scene from "The Color Purple." He wrote that only a few family members were present in Badu's Brooklyn home, including her daughter Puma. The rapper told followers he was sending the tweets between watching contractions and rubbing Badu's feet. He even blogged about Badu's water breaking, how far along she was dilated and when she started pushing.

"I see the head, full of hair," he wrote. Just over 20 minutes later, Badu gave birth.

"Feb. 1 2009 my first child, my daughter born at 130 PM exactly," the new father wrote. "It's the happiest day of my life."

Later, Badu, who has two children from previous relationships with rappers Andre 3000 and the D.O.C., popped back online with a message to fans.

"I can't believe it's over," she wrote. "Home birth, no painkillers, about five hours, she was a little past due date, but I didn't mind waiting. Breath."

on the cusp?

Check out an Associated Press article on birth, health care reform and The Big Push For Midwives.

By DAVID CRARY – 3 days ago

NEW YORK (AP) — With health care costs high on the national agenda, advocates of home births are challenging the medical and political establishments to give midwives a larger role in maternity care and to ease the state laws that limit their out-of-hospital practice.

Pending bills to further this goal have significant backing in several states, which home-birth supporters want to add to the 25 states that already have taken such steps.

Nationally, a group called the Big Push for Midwives marked President Barack Obama's inauguration with an e-mail campaign urging him to ensure that midwives who specialize in home births are included in deliberations on federal health care reform.

"We're at a tipping point now," said Katherine Prown, the Big Push campaign manager. "Home births are still only a small part of the total, but it's poised for growth."

The campaign seeks to emphasize that in this time of economic crisis, home births can be a safe, satisfying and moneysaving option for many women. But it runs into adamant opposition from the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

"Childbirth decisions should not be dictated or influenced by what's fashionable, trendy, or the latest cause celebre," the obstetricians' policy statement says. "Despite the rosy picture painted by home birth advocates, a seemingly normal labor and delivery can quickly become life-threatening for both the mother and baby."

According to the latest federal data, there were only about 25,000 home births nationally in 2006 — most of them assisted by midwives — out of nearly 4.3 million total births.

Midwife-attended home births increased by 27 percent between 1996 and 2006. Home-birth advocates believe the numbers will rise as more states amend their laws to accommodate the practice, which they contend is at least as safe as hospital births for healthy women with low-risk pregnancies.

One of the strengths of the state-by-state campaign is its diversity, Prown said.

"We're one of the few movements that's succeeded in bringing together pro-life and pro-choice activists, liberal feminists and Christian conservatives," she said. "In every state we manage to recruit Republican and Democratic co-sponsors who normally would never be on the same bill together."

The states are now evenly split on legal recognition of certified professional midwives (CPMs) — those who lack nursing degrees and who account for most midwife-assisted home births.

Half the states have procedures allowing CPMs to practice legally — including five which have taken such steps since 2005. The other 25 states lack such procedures and CPMs are subject to prosecution for practicing medicine without a license.

Depending on legislative decisions, the balance could shift this year. Among the battlegrounds:

_In North Carolina, a House study committee recommended in December that the legislature develop licensing standards for CPMs. The committee said the current system doesn't meet the needs of women who chose non-hospital births because of the "extremely limited supply" of obstetricians and nurse-midwives offering to handle such births.

_In Idaho, advocates who failed previously to get a voluntary licensing bill through the legislature are back with a mandatory licensing bill. State Rep. Janice McGeachin, R-Idaho Falls, says the changes helped persuade the state boards of nursing and pharmacy to drop their opposition. The Idaho Medical Association, which fought the earlier version, has expressed respect for the changes in the bill and is deliberating on whether further changes might produce a version it could accept.

_In Illinois, advocates also are back with a new version of a licensing bill that failed in 2007. Rep. Julie Hamos, D-Evanston, says it toughens qualification standards for CPMs — changes that prompted the Illinois Nurses Association to drop its opposition. The Illinois State Medical Society remains opposed.

"There are many in the legislature who feel a need to have this option — they need to be educated," said Dr. Shastri Swaminathan, the society's president. "We're in strong opposition to licensing midwives who don't have the medical training to provide safe home births."

Cost is a major element in the debate. A routine hospital birth often can cost $8,000 to $10,000, with higher bills for cesarean section deliveries that now account for 31 percent of U.S. births.

Midwives' fees for home births are often less than a third of the hospital cost, in part because the mothers generally don't receive epidural anesthesia or various other medical interventions at home.

For pregnant women, insurance coverage can be a decisive factor in their choice. Many insurers cover care by nurse-midwives in hospitals; coverage is less common for midwives who aren't nurses or who assist with home births.

Many obstetricians acknowledge that the spiraling cost of maternity care and high rate of C-sections are problems.

"But the answer is not to have births at home," said Dr. Erin Tracy, an obstetrician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "We obviously support women's empowerment, but the No. 1 guiding principle has to be the health and safety of the mother and baby."

The national physicians' groups do support births assisted in hospitals and birthing centers by midwives who've completed nursing school or an equivalent postgraduate program.

The American College of Nurse-Midwives, which represents these midwives, says it differs from the AMA in considering home births a legitimate option for pregnant women. But the college says only nurse-midwives or others with comparable training should be allowed to assist.

"We don't believe it's safe without being integrated into the full health care system," said Melissa Avery, the college's president.

The education standards endorsed by the college would exclude many of the estimated 1,400 certified professional midwives, who often acquire training through apprenticeships.

Jane Peterson of Iola, Wis., is an example. She began a midwife apprenticeship in 1980 and has attended more than 1,330 births since then, many of them before she and her counterparts were legally authorized to practice under a 2005 state law.

Peterson, 56, said she strives to develop collaborative relations with local doctors so that transfers to hospitals go smoothly if risk factors develop. She believes such cooperation should be encouraged nationwide, so more women can feel comfortable about choosing home births.

"People will tell you that you changed their lives," said Peterson, reflecting on the rewards of her job.

"It's hard work — getting up on a cold winter night, going out one more time through the snow. What keeps you going is the recognition women feel — as though they are a different kind of mother when they've been able to give birth their way."

On the Net:

• American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: http://www.acog.org/
• Big Push for Midwives: http://www.thebigpushformidwives.org/

Californication

(spoiler alert)
Imagine my surprise when watching the season finale of this Showtime series and seeing a doula! In a minor plot line, the protagonist, Hank, may have gotten an acquaintance pregnant (the show is called Californication - it's very adult stuff) and thus is called to the home birth. The birthing woman is living with her boyfriend, a new age swami guy author, and they are having a waterbirth. She's sitting (very high up - I assume for purposes of being seen well on camera, becasue her position in the water was doing nothing to help her labor!) and is cursing, screaming for drugs and bemoaning changes to her, er, "anatomy"...
The doula says, in a dreamy voice, something like, "Let it go - it's about transcendence" and the birthing woman screams at her somthing like "FU, YOU F'ING DOULA!".

BUT - she has a healthy (dark-skinned, not Hank's) baby boy seconds later. No clue where the midwife was - maybe the swami guy is a doctor? But the reason I see this as more positive than negative is that homebirth on TV & film usually results in "emergency" transport, some sort of chastising for the "crazy" & "selfish", misguided plan and then salvation via cesarean (case in point - The L word - another Showtime show I love about a group of lesbian friends, written by women...that homebirth ended in a c-section...and pissed me off - they really had a chance to say something positive & they went the scary music route instead.) So I can live with someone in transition yelling at her doula...I'm just happy she had a doula and that the non-water-waterbirth happened without the plot requiring near-tragedy.
And you know what they say about press - bad or good, it's people talking.

PS: I love how TV/movies always use some three month old baby covered in red jello and try to pass it off as a newborn! No wonder women are frightened - they think they will be giving birth to a 15 pound baby!

Baby, You're Home

Check out the almost entirely positive story on home birth in today's New York Times, accompanied by a lovely slideshow online (including the above photos). The article notes a growing home birth surge taking place:

...in 2006 home births accounted for only one-half of 1 percent of the city’s 125,506 reported births. But local midwives say they have been swamped with calls and requests in recent months, in some cases increasing their workload from two, three or four deliveries a month to as many as 10.

Of course, I would have loved if the reporter hadn't used loaded words like "grueling ordeal" and "traumatic" and lots of other fear-based language when the families involved seemed not to experience their births like that at all (note to the reporter: check your own preconceptions at the door & just observe/report, please). I wish the cover picture were a more joyful one - it's possible to mistakenly conclude that everyone in the picture is worried. I wish it hit harder on cesarean rates (and the fact that some hospitals hover around or above 50% instead of the already-deplorable national average of 33%) - and by the way, a cesarean is far more than a "procedure", it's major abdominal surgery. I wish the last part, about the AMA's stance, were not entitled "Playing It Safe". But overall, aside from the incongruity of the reporter's editorializing as compared to the facts and stories reported, it's good...

Blessings to all the families who shared their births for this article and to all those who read it and consider their options. When people see the beauty and simplicity that birth can be, especially at home, it is hard to go back to that place of fear and judgment. I hope that is true for many who read the NY Times piece.

there I go again!

Homebirth at MoMa!
...wait, why would the Museum of Modern Art have an exhibit on homebirth? Um, they don't. When I saw this picture that was just, of course, my first thought. But one of the current special exhibitions is Home Delivery, about pre-fabricated houses. (one I'd totally love to check out - I loves me some architecture, and especially pre-fab building!)
Doh - when will I learn?