You can give birth at home if you and your child are healthy and 37 weeks pregnant.

Home birth characteristics:

• You have less chance of medical interventions, such as hormones to induce labor, an epidural, or a pump for pain relief, than with an outpatient birth.
• You have less chance of cutting during childbirth.
• Women who start childbirth at home more often give birth spontaneously, without a vacuum pump or cesarean section.
• You and the baby do not come into contact with hospital bacteria.
• You don't have to go out with contractions: we come to you. Even after giving birth, you do not have to move: you can shower in your bathroom and lie in your own clean bed.
• You are primarily in control. Drawing up a birth plan helps you make your wishes known.
• The maternity nurse, who is also present during the delivery, will support you during the first hours after the delivery. She cares for you and your baby, shows you around, and tidies up.
• Home birth is fully reimbursed by the basic package of all insurers.

If complications arise, you still have to go to the hospital. Remember that 63.2% of women giving birth are referred to a hospital after giving birth for the first time. Usually, a transfer to the hospital during childbirth is not an emergency, and you can go to the hospital calmly, just like with an outpatient delivery. If there is an emergency or you cannot use your own transport, you go by ambulance. That is arranged by the midwife. True urgency occurs in about 3% of deliveries.

Suppose you want medical pain relief such as an epidural, an injection with pethidine, or a pump with remifentanil. In that case, you have to go to the hospital. Pain relief such as sterile water injections, acupuncture, acupressure, birthTens, and relaxation techniques can also be applied at home.