During the pandemic, the number of home births in the United States increased by 20 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With many mothers seeking alternatives to the hospital setting where COVID protocols were particularly stringent, home births suddenly became an attractive option for delivering a child. Long before the pandemic, though, Sunny Daily has helped a number of families deliver babies at home here on Nantucket. A doula and student midwife, she has attended more than two hundred births on and off the island and can speak to the potential benefits of birthing from home.

Historically, what are some of the reasons your clients have elected to have a home birth?

My clients tend to choose home birth because they are seeking a natural, unmedicated, low intervention, intimate experience, with one provider. Home birth clients tend to be, or want to be, well informed of their choices prenatally, during birth and postpartum. Often, they want their partners and other children to be involved in their prenatal care and birth experience.

How did you see the interest in home births change during the pandemic?

I saw a huge influx of people interested in home birth. The initial realization I had, after the shock of this influx of interest, was that many families were coming to midwifery care as a choice made out of fear—fear of COVID, fear of hospitals not allowing partners in, fear they would get COVID in the hospital, fear of the unknown. Fear is a hard way to come to any choice but an especially less than ideal way to come to the decision of birthing at home.

What’s your approach to home birth?

People have been giving birth literally since the beginning of time. My approach to birth is based on our innate ability to give birth. However, birthing people have their own unique histories and experiences that influence the choices they make when thinking about where, how and with whom to give birth. You will birth best where you feel safest. This looks different for different people. I strive to meet people where they are. That is why I am not only a midwife but also a doula and educator.

What are some of the precautionary measures you take in making sure the home birth is safe?

The biggest precaution we take is to assure the birthing person is in the best health they can be with good nutrition, good prenatal care, good support, and that they keep their prenatal visits to assure this continues throughout the pregnancy. The second part has to do with monitoring during labor. This is both noticing how the birthing person and their support people are handling the stress of labor, monitoring the baby’s heart rate to assure they are handling labor well, and knowing when things are straying away from normal and how we can help. During a home birth, basic things become very important like rest, hydration and fueling the body. As a midwife, I am trained to deal with complications at birth and in the immediate postpartum.

Why has giving birth become considered a medical procedure as opposed to a natural process?

We tend to forget that we have great resources for those people and situations where they are needed. For people who are healthy, whose pregnancy is healthy and whose developing baby is healthy, and who may want a different experience, all of those resources may not be needed for a safe and healthy birth experience and great outcome. For those reasons, some people turn to midwifery care and home birth. Midwifery care in general, and how that fits into the larger picture of birth in industrial or developed countries versus those with perhaps limited resources, is that ultimately pregnancy and birth are part of wellness and for many people a natural part of our reproductive health.