The Women Having Babies Underground: The legal landscape for home births varies by state, leaving some moms outside the law
The Women Having Babies Underground: The legal landscape for home births varies by state, leaving some moms outside the law
Thank you to The American Conservative for allowing us to post this article on our site. About the Author: Evie Solheim is a West Virginia-based home birth mom, freelance journalist, and author of the newsletter The Girl’s Guide. To read the article in full, click the button at the bottom of the page.
After two years working in a labor and delivery unit as a surgical tech, Carlie Smith knew she didn’t want to give birth in a hospital. Nearly every night shift she worked was the same: women were wheeled in for cesarean sections following failed 39-week inductions that their bodies and babies weren’t ready for.
But as a North Carolina resident, Smith didn’t have many options for home birth. North Carolina is one of a dozen states that doesn’t license Certified Professional Midwives, who are direct-entry midwives specializing in out-of-hospital birth. CPMs can face arrest just for practicing in the state.
So Smith went underground. She found a midwife based in Charlotte, N.C., to attend the birth of her first daughter in August 2022.
“My first birth was definitely intense. I was in prodromal labor for a week, but my actual labor was three hours,” Smith told TAC. “It was very empowering because I was the one that caught her.”
Smith is one of a growing number of women choosing home birth. The number of home births in the United States jumped nearly 20% from 2019 to 2020, according to Pew Research Center analysis of National Center for Health Statistics data. That statistic is far from a pandemic fluke. Midwives across the country say their busy schedules are evidence that women are returning to home birth.