08/18/2026
Homebirth is growing. 🌻
And not by a little bit.
In 2019, 38,506 babies were born at home in the United States.
In 2024, that number was 58,626.
That’s more than a 52% increase in five years.
And I don’t think families are choosing homebirth because of twinkle lights and aesthetic videos on IG.
They’re choosing homebirth because they want something different.
They want to know who is going to walk through their door when they call in labor.
They want prenatal appointments where there is actually time to sit on the couch and talk about the weird pain they had Tuesday, the thing their mother-in-law told them, the birth video they saw on TikTok, and the ten questions they remembered on the drive over. 😂
They want informed consent to actually mean informed consent.
They want to eat. Drink. Move. Get in the shower. Get out of the shower. Get in the birth pool. Get out of the birth pool. Squat next to their bed because apparently that is where their baby has decided they need to be.
They want their people around them.
They want their toddlers wandering in wearing one sock. They want their dog checking on them. They want their own music and their own bathroom and their own pillow.
They want someone watching over the safety of birth without taking ownership of it away from them.
Sometimes homebirth ends with a baby being born into their mama’s hands in the living room.
Sometimes it’s a precipitous birth where the tub never got filled and your midwife barely gets her gloves on.
Sometimes homebirth looks like saying, “Hey. Something has changed. It’s time to go.”
Homebirth isn’t for everyone.
But clearly, more families are looking at the way we birth in this country and deciding they want another option.
38,506 homebirths in 2019 → 58,626 in 2024.
More than 20,000 additional babies being born at home each year in just five years.
That feels worth talking about. ❤️
