130: So You Had A Home Birth...Now What? (with Kayla Heeter)

So you just had a home birth...what do you do next? 

If it isn't obvious already, home birth is starkly and vastly different than a hospital or birth center birth. But is it any different immediately following the birth?

In today's topical episode, Kayla discusses the following topics regarding home birth:

- What to do when the birth is over

- The legality of home birth (Is home birth legal?)

- Providing proof of pregnancy

- Processes for getting birth certificates and social security cards. (NC specific)

- Newborn care after a home birth

- Whether or not to go to a pediatrician

- And more...!

Transcript

Host 0:00

If you're a first-time mom, I know your confidence usually isn't established yet because you're doing this for the first time, and there's a lot that people could easily make you anxious about. And so it almost feels better and gives you more peace sometimes if you have some professional telling you that your baby is perfectly fine. But I'm Kayla Heater, follower of Jesus, wife and mother of six children, Christian childbirth educator and doula, and your host of the Surrendered Birth Stories podcast, where we share God-centered birth stories, evidence-based birth education, and our pursuit of surrendering our birth plans to God. Let's get started. Hey everyone, I hope you are having a great week and I hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day weekend. My husband and I, our history with Valentine's Day has been a bit of a roller coaster. Sometimes we go all out and do something really special and fun, like a couple's massage or like a romantic dinner date, flowers, candy, chocolate, things like that. And other times it's like we get takeout and we stay in and we wait till the kids go to bed and watch movie or I don't I don't know. It's it's all over the place, honestly. It's never been very consistent. But that is, you know, what happens with different seasons of life. So in this year's season of Valentine's Days, we have a newborn. And so we waited until um all of the littles were down. I got the baby down. Um, we told our two biggest kids, well, actually, we got everyone down but our oldest, and then just basically said, okay, now go to your room and like read, hang out. And we did popcorn and chocolate and wine by the fire, and just we just talked to each other, honestly, and we kind of reminisced on the Valentine's Days of the past and how we've seen each other grow and grow over the years and our love for each other and everything. So humble, sweet little Valentine's Day, but it's what we needed and what we could do in this season of life. So I hope you guys all enjoyed yours, whatever it is that you did, whether you're pregnant or nursing or you know, have a baby, or maybe you're past that, or maybe you're looking forward to that. I don't know, but however you celebrated, I hope it was great. We are gonna have beautiful weather this week, and I can't wait. Um, here in North Carolina, it's gonna be in the 60s, and I think it gets up to 70 one day and mostly sunny, and I am stoked because after all that snow and ice, we are all ready for like the spring weather. And I know it's a little early for actual spring because I still want my fires at night, but I am loving this weather. The kids will be able to just run outside, and that is what I'm most excited about, and like nice weather for walks again. Okay, I'm gonna be done rambling now. Um, I have not mentioned this in a very long time. I think it's been like months, honestly, since I mentioned this. But we would love if you guys could leave a written review for the show. It actually really helps get the show in front of more people. Um, it will help like the algorithms, the more written ratings and reviews that the show has that will suggest it to other people who are listening to similar shows. And then we can get more people to hear these amazing, awesome Christian birth stories that you guys are so great at telling. So if you could, it's on Apple Podcasts. I think on Spotify you can just give it a five-star rating. But on Apple Podcasts, you scroll down to the review section. There's a section that says tap to rate, but right under that, under the reviews, it just says write a review and just click on that. It's so simple. I like to read new reviews um that come on the show. So hopefully someone will leave a new review uh this week and I'll be able to read it next week on the show and give you a shout out. I love giving you shout-outs whenever I get to. Okay, I'm gonna dive into this week's episode. It is a little bit different than usual. We do, you know, obviously mainly Christian birth stories here, but once a month or once every couple months or something, we'll do a topical episode. Um, and that is what this one. I got actually a request for this specific episode. And as she asked it, I realized there were more people who probably could benefit from it. So we are doing a dive into what happens after the baby comes out when you have a home birth. And what do you do next? And we talked a lot about home birth on this podcast, you know, for the last couple of years and how to, you know, have a home birth and everything. But but then what happens next? Because I think that is where some people get tripped up. So let's dive in. So you just had a home birth. What do you do next? Ever wonder how home birthers get a birth certificate for their baby, or how they do basic newborn screenings from home? Or how about do they need to go anywhere or see anybody following the birth? We'll answer all of your questions and more on today's topical episode. Okay, everyone, we're here for another solo topical episode. And this is when I got a request for um a couple of months ago, and the more she talked about it, the more I realized we hadn't really covered any of that stuff in our podcast before. So today we're actually going to be talking about what happens after you have a home birth. So we've talked a lot on the podcast about, you know, having a home birth and kind of what that looks like. We've talked about hiring different care providers and what the care looks like for a home birth. And but we haven't really talked about what happens after the birth is over because it is a little bit different than it would be if you delivered um in a hospital or in like a freestanding birth center. I think everyone sort of understands the concept of having a baby at home, but let's talk about what happens next. So, first of all, I think it depends on what kind of home birth you had in terms of who you hired as your care provider or if you hired a care provider. So different states have different laws about that. You've probably heard us talk about that before. Since I am in North Carolina, here in North Carolina, they only recognize certified nurse midwives, CNMs, you know, legal certified midwives who can attend home births and birth center bursts and hospital births. They do not recognize CPMs, certified professional midwives, as licensed midwives here in the state, even though all the states surrounding North Carolina recognize CPMs along with like 38 other states. So we're just weird here in North Carolina. It makes it a little bit trickier. So, first of all, it depends on who you hired as your midwife. So if you hired a CNM, you'll be able to have a little bit more fluid of like transfers of records and stuff after the baby's born, um, just because they were a quote unquote legal care provider for you. Um, and they'll be able to file different documents. However, um, a CPM, if you had a CPM as your care provider, they're not technically allowed to be like on any documents regarding your home birth lest they get in trouble. So you as the birthing mother would never get in trouble for having a CPM attend your home birth, but the CPM has the potential to get in trouble, whether it would be like a fine or jail time or something, which does not happen often. Um, and that's why CPMs are a lot more choosy about who they take on as clients, because there has to be a level of trust and understanding there. Or also maybe you had a free birth. Maybe you didn't have anybody attend your home birth and it was just you and your husband. So again, depending on what kind of home birth you had, we'll sort of start out how you would take your next steps. So the things that people are concerned about are care for the baby after the birth and documentation, like how do we file for a birth certificate? How do we file for a social security card and stuff like that? Because when you're at the hospital, and even when you're at the birth center, they have the forms there for you to fill out on the spot to file for your child's birth certificate and their social security card. So you have everything there and then they take care of it for you. So, like they'll send it all in, they'll get it all sent off, and it will come back to you in the mail typically, or they'll tell you here's where you can go pick up or order the birth certificate, but they do all the filing for you. So at home, it looks a little bit different because there is no form that the midwife, you know, brings with her typically in most states. I would say it might be different in a couple of states. So instead, here's what you would do. So if you would like to file for a birth certificate andor social security card for your baby, you would have to contact the county actually that you live in. Because not only does it differ by state, but it differs by county. So each county is going to have a slightly different process for filing. So again, I'm not, I can't list every single state in every single county and what the requirements are. But generally speaking, it's something along the lines of you will have to fill out a form, a birth form about your child's birth. Again, if you're working with a CNM, you can put their name as like the person who attended the birth. If not, you just put, you know, you or your husband, you and or your husband's names. And then you're going to have to usually provide some proof of pregnancy. So they want to know that you were actually pregnant because they don't want just, you know, anybody applying for a social security card for like a made-up person, right? And leading to like identity fraud and all that kind of stuff. So they want proof that you are pregnant. They usually will accept lab work results from some type of provider. They will accept an ultrasound photo with like the date and everything and your information on it. But if you are like me in my fourth pregnancy or fifth, I think it was my fifth pregnancy, we didn't get any labs done. We didn't get any ultrasounds done. We didn't have any actual testing. And we were working with the CPM. So she couldn't, you know, write us any sort of a note that said we were pregnant. In that case, we we had to write a basically a very short letter, more or less, that was from somebody of upstanding leadership or something in our community to verify as a witness that we were pregnant. So we had one of the pastors from our church sign this form that said, Hey, I hereby declare that Kayla Heater was pregnant during this time and had her baby. And then they signed it, and then we had to get it notarized. And that was like our official proof of pregnancy. It took us a couple of attempts. Like the first, it was like the first time they didn't accept it. We had to get somebody else to do it. And you know, the notary process, depending on where you are, can be a little tricky. So we ended up with this next baby. I just went ahead and got one ultrasound at 20 weeks, like a very quick anatomy scan, partially just to avoid all of that for when it comes to applying for the birth certificate. So yeah, so you'll turn in some sort of proof of pregnancy along with filling out this form about the birth and signing all these papers. You also have to turn in you and your husband's if your husband is involved, you and your husband's, um, usually your IDs, like your driver's license, and your social security cards. You can usually email all of that in. You don't have to do it in person, but you can. But it's basically like they just want to verify that you two are real people. You had a real person. So this real person can then have, you know, a birth certificate and a social security card. Now it's totally up to you. There are some people I know out there who don't end up wanting to get a birth certificate or social security card and they want to be like super off-grid and not have the government know that their child exists to each their own. So if that's you, great, then you don't have to do anything. But if you want a birth certificate or social security card for your child, then you'll have to apply. Now, there are also, depending on the state and depending on the county, different time requirements in which you need to apply. So that's something I would definitely look into and research um before the birth of your baby, just so you're not like, you know, in newborn, foggy postpartum land and trying to figure that information out. And typically you can ask like a local home birth Facebook group. That's like honestly, I know Facebook has a lot of downfalls, but that is one good thing about Facebook is that they have a lot of good like home birth groups on there for different locations. And you can look up a group in your area and just ask other people in your area who have had a home birth and say, like, hey, if you're in this county, do you know the process for applying for a birth certificate? Do you know how long we have? Because like some counties are like 30 days and other counties are like a year. Um, like you have up to a year after the birth to apply and stuff like that. And I know if you miss the cutoff, you can still apply for a birth certificate, but it it gets a lot stickier and more complicated. So um, if you do it within their like identified time frame, then it's usually a smoother, a smoother process. Now, I've heard some people say, well, you know, am I gonna get in trouble? Is someone going to come after me because I had a home birth? No, not when it comes to applying for a birth certificate. So and social security card, no one's going to come after you, like CPS and stuff like that. That's not gonna be an issue. People have home births every day in every county all the time. Um, so they're very used to it. I know our county, we live in uh Guilford County here in North Carolina, and it's a very streamlined process. There's a girl in the office who handles it, and I still have her email saved from two babies ago, and I literally just say, Hey, I had another baby, and she's like, Great, send me, you know, fill out the form, upload your documents, and I'll get it processed for you. It's a very like simple. Again, check out your county's requirements before you have a baby, just so you're not like having to navigate all of that when you're super sleep deprived. Whether you are pregnant with your first baby or wanting to have a different birth experience for a subsequent delivery, this is the fully comprehensive Christian childbirth course for you. The Surrendered Birth Course. With over 10 years of experience as a childbirth educator, a birth doula, and having had five kids myself, almost six, I have created a course fit for every mama out there who wishes to be fully informed on all things pregnancy, labor, birth, postpartum, and breastfeeding, while remembering to keep Jesus at the center of it all. Our God created a beautiful design for birth, something to look forward to and not something to be feared. Not only will this course get you prepared for your birth, but it will also get you excited for it. It will answer questions you never knew you had and teach you things you didn't realize were so incredibly valuable and central to the entire birthing process. I've had numerous couples on their second, third, or even fourth babies who've taken this course and said how incredibly glad they were and that they learned so much more than they ever thought they would. With over 12 hours of video content, five modules, numerous lessons, detailed PDF printout notes, and endless resources, we dive deep into pregnancy, labor, the risks and benefits of interventions, inductions, immediate and extended postpartum for both mom and baby, everything you need to know about breastfeeding, and basic newborn care. This course covers everything. Once you've taken the course, I am available to you for any questions you might have during a monthly live QA Zoom call exclusive to our online course audience, as well as through email. The course is on demand, so as soon as you purchase it, you'll be able to start right away and re-watch any lessons as many times as you need. Whether you are planning a medicated hospital birth or an unmedicated birth at a birth center or home birth, this course will prepare you in every way that you can be prepared. While I understand the desire to take a specific hospital or home birth course cater to your specific birth plans, birth doesn't always go how we plan. And having the knowledge of how birth can go in other environments outside of our plans is essential. Most importantly, I will help you to surrender these plans to God. And in return, the Holy Spirit will provide you with the peace that only He can give. For more information on the course, to read testimonials of others who have taken it, or to sign up for the course, just click the link in the show notes. And lastly, remember, just like we say here every week on the podcast, learn all that you can, make the best plans, and then leave it in God's hands. Okay, so that's like what it when it comes to like documentation of like how to handle that, since birth centers and hospitals do that for you if you deliver there. Um, you do have to do it on your own if you have a home birth. But in terms of like newborn care afterwards, I have a lot of people say, Well, do I have to take them to the pediatrician? And when do I have to take them to the pediatrician? Or can my midwife look after them and da-da-da-da, like etc.? So again, it depends. So if you have a provider, like if you didn't have a free birth and you have like a care provider, a CNM or a CPM, they can come and do, you know, postpartum checks when they're checking on you. They're also checking on baby. So they're doing, you know, their weight checks and they're looking at them. And some can diagnose, you know, tongue tie, lip tie stuff. Not everybody can, but they are observing your baby as much as they're observing you when they come for postpartums. So if they see anything alarming, they'll let you know, you know, if you should take your baby in somewhere or not. But if not, then it's fine. They can just, you know, be the ones looking after your baby. If you had a free birth, then you obviously aren't going to have that like postpartum care from a midwife to check on you or your baby. But it doesn't necessarily mean you have to take your baby to the pediatrician. So I know. Know that under pretty much any insurance plan, they have these covered what they call well checks. Um checking on your baby. And usually the very first one is like two days postpartum, which is crazy to me. We took our first few babies to their like two-day appointment well checks. However, I don't do that anymore. And then there's usually if your baby is not back up to their birth weight, there's like a two-week check, sometimes a one-week check, and then they are on like the regular CDC schedule of like one month, two months four months six month, etc. Now, to be clear, if you're going to these pediatric appointments with your new baby, it is for two things primarily. One is to check their weight and their weight gain. Two is for vaccinations. So if you are not vaccinating your child and you have a scale at home or you feel good about their weight gain, there's actually no reason to take your baby to these insurance-covered well-check appointments. They are genuinely so that you can vaccinate your children. So I have, you know, moms say, Oh gosh, do I have to go with the two-day and blah, blah, blah. No, you don't have to go. It you are well within your rights to not go. Now, the other thing is you don't actually have to go to a pediatrician either. So your baby does not have to go to a pediatric office just because they're newborn. If your family has an integrative health specialist that they see, or if they have a naturopath that they see, or if your whole family goes to like one family practice, one family doctor that you go to, or even I know our local birth center now offers like pediatric services, and there is a nurse practitioner there who does um, you know, well checks and stuff for for babies. So you do not have to go to a pediatrician's office. It is not a requirement by any means. You can go anywhere, but again, you don't have to go at all. So if you feel like your baby's doing well, breastfeeding's going well, and they're gaining weight and every everything's hunky-dory, then you can just sit at home and enjoy your baby and be skin to skin with them and snuggle with them and nurse them and heal, heal from the fact that you just had a baby and you have a large internal wound and you're bleeding, you know, continuously and you need to rest. That's the thing that gets me about all these postpartum appointments, is they'll say, Oh, moms, you need to be resting, you need to be laying down and recovering. And then they're like, But please be here in two days for this appointment and then come back in a week for this appointment, and then come back in another week for this appointment. And you're like, What? How am I supposed to be resting when you're having me drive all over the place? Anyways, again, you don't have to go. Now, obviously, if you're having some sort of issue, if you feel like um you're unsure about something that's happening with your baby and you just feel you just like don't have a piece about staying at home and you want them to be seen some by somebody, then by all means, go for it. Schedule an appointment. But again, if you're not vaccinating and everything's going well, then you don't have to go to those appointments. Our last two that we had, which were our two home births, babies four and five, um, and we'll have the same plan for baby six when he comes, um, have never been to the pediatrician before because they've never been ill or sick or injured in such a way that we weren't able to handle it at home. So because we don't vaccinate anymore, um, 12 years ago that was a different story when I hadn't done any research, but um, because we don't vaccinate anymore, there's no reason for our children to go to well checks. We have a scale at home. I'm five babies into breastfeeding, and my milk supply has historically been very abundant, and we are blessed in that way. So I've never felt the need to take either one of them in for any reason. So if you're a first-time mom, I know your confidence usually isn't established yet because you're doing this for the first time, and there's a lot that people could easily make you anxious about. And so it almost feels better and gives you more peace sometimes if you have some professional telling you that your baby is perfectly fine. But with time and experience, you know, you'll gain that motherly intuition and confidence and knowing like when your baby genuinely needs like professional help and care, and when you can just handle things at home. Now, obviously, if you are choosing to vaccinate on any level, then that would obviously require appointments for your child. So you would have to go in for those. I know some people choose to do it and spread them out and stuff, which usually requires then more appointments and more visits and stuff. But people ask, well, you know, if I had a home birth and and I go to my pediatrician's office and some pediatricians' offices are not as kind to people who have chosen home birth. These are usually the same pediatric offices that require you to be on the CDC vaccination schedule in order to remain a client with them. So I would say I find it rare that there is a mom who chose to have a home birth, a an unmedicated natural birth, who then also wants to go and get their child vaccinated with every vaccine. I don't come across that combination often. Usually, if a mom is choosing to have her baby at home, usually they're also choosing not to vaccinate. So when it comes to, hey, what do I do after a home birth about the pediatrician? Well, again, unless you're having specific issues, there's really nothing that you need to do. You don't have to go to the pediatrician. It's not, it's not a requirement by any means. It's usually more so my hospital moms who are choosing to go to the hospital, um, and some who are choosing to have medicated births, who are the ones who are choosing also to vaccinate and therefore choosing to go to the pediatrician's office regularly. Now, I will say, especially during, you know, the cold and flu, if you want to call it cold and flu season, and we don't have time to go down that rabbit hole today about what makes that cold and flu season, but there are definitely, I believe, a lot more uh germs in the pediatrician's office than just about anywhere else. Also note that if you're taking them in regularly for vaccinations or whatnot, they're also a lot more exposed to those germs in those offices than they would be if you're at home or somewhere else or outside or something. So you can keep that in mind as well. So I know this was a shorter informational episode, but it's one that was requested and one that I feel like I'll then be able to send out to people as a resource, or you guys can send it out to other people as a resource if they say, like, okay, you know, I want to have a home birth, but like, how do we go about documentation, pediatrician, et cetera? So, in summary, if you have a home birth, you will need to check with your county where you live and what their requirements are for filing for a birth certificate and Social Security ahead of time, but there are ways to do it. You simply usually have to fill out a form and provide, you know, identification documents and proof of pregnancy and get that sent in within their time frame. And then, as far as the pediatrician goes, you don't have to go to a pediatrician. You could go to a different type of office, like integrated health specialist, naturopath, etc. Um, but then even then, you only would need to go if you have a personal concern about your child's health or if you are choosing to vaccinate. Otherwise, you can just stay at home and snuggle with your baby, which is what the heater family does generally. And it leads to a much more peaceful and restful and quicker healing process postpartum. That's all we have today. Quick, short, informational, a little bit different than normal, but hopefully that is helpful should you choose to have a home birth in the future and not know what the aftermath looks like. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. You can reach me at Surrendered Birth Services on Instagram or email me at contact at Surrendered Birth Services.com. Be sure not to miss an episode by hitting the follow button. Also, we'd love for you to leave a written review of the show so that more people's births and lives can be changed by the love of Jesus and the empowerment of accurate birth education. If you really enjoyed this episode in particular, please take a screenshot of it and post it to your Instagram story tagging Surrendered Birth Services. If you would like to be a guest on the Surrendered Birth Stories podcast, please click the link in the episode show notes to fill out your interest form. Also, if you're interested in taking my childbirth classes, birth consultations, or having me as your birth doula, please click on the link in the show notes to take you to my website for online and in-person options. Just as a reminder, this show is not giving medical advice. So please continue to see your personal care provider as needs arise. We hope you have a great week. And remember, learn all that you can, make the best plans, and then leave it in God's hands. I forgot it. I hope it wasn't that important.