[ti:Women Are Giving Birth at Home ¨C On Purpose!] [ar:Anna Matteo] [al:Health Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, [00:01.60]this is the Health Report. [00:04.38]Empowering. Life-changing. [00:08.52]These are two words women often use [00:11.66]to describe natural childbirth. [00:14.72]Painful would be a third. [00:17.16]But that's a different story. [00:18.67]This story is about midwives in Los Angeles, California. [00:24.31]They are trying to bring more women of color [00:27.88]into the natural childbirth profession [00:31.37]and convince more women to give birth at home. [00:36.53]But the numbers are small. [00:39.22]Only one percent of babies in the United States [00:43.98]are born at home. [00:45.80]However, interest in home deliveries is on the rise. [00:51.31]In Los Angeles, California, for example, [00:55.22]some women are choosing to use midwives [00:59.26]instead of the usual hospital birth with a doctor. [01:04.68]Midwives are specially educated in childbirth. [01:08.88]They begin as apprentices or students [01:13.12]and then must pass state-issued tests, or Medical Boards. [01:19.58]In 2012, Jasmine Lavender delivered her second child in a bathtub. [01:28.17]"It was an amazing experience. Very empowering. You know, [01:32.33]I encouraged to support other moms to have a vaginal births. [01:36.63]It was life-changing, to be honest." [01:39.01]She chose home birth with a midwife [01:41.99]because she did not want to repeat the hospital experience [01:46.61]she had with her first child. [01:49.39]Ms. Lavender says at that time, [01:52.10]the hospital performed an unneeded and hurried medical operation [01:58.45]-- a Caesarean section. [02:00.59]During the birth she says she felt that her time was running out. [02:06.05]And not time on her body's clock but rather on her doctor's clock. [02:12.52]Ms. Lavender's second baby arrived naturally with help [02:18.05]from the Community Birth Center in south Los Angeles. [02:22.45]Licensed midwife Racha Lawler established the Center. [02:27.66]It provides services to people who might not otherwise receive them. [02:34.19]Ms. Lawler says the Center offers some general health services, [02:39.56]such as testing for sexually transmitted diseases -- or STDs. [02:47.24]"You know, as a midwife you can draw people's blood [02:49.46]and test people's blood and test people for STDs. [02:52.09]You can, you know, teach women about how their bodies work [02:56.05]in regards to their ovulation and fertility. [02:57.89]So why not make sure everyone in the community knows that?" [03:01.74]When the Center first opened, [03:03.77]there were about 300 licensed midwives in California. [03:08.95]Most of them were white. [03:11.28]But Racha Lawler hopes to increase [03:13.91]by 100 percent the number of midwives of color. [03:18.32]She hopes to do this through reaching out to the community [03:22.70]and offering free help for students like Tanya Smith-Johnson. [03:28.39]Ms. Smith-Johnson says women of color [03:31.79]have a special need of pregnancy and delivery care. [03:36.48]"The stats (the numbers) show women of color, [03:38.40]we're the ones who need maternity care. [03:41.42]Our babies die at rates 3 or 4 times that of white women. [03:45.33]And one of the solutions to that is having more women of color [03:50.56]tend to women like themselves." [03:52.63]From VOA Learning English, [03:55.29]that¡¯s the Health Report. [03:57.01]I¡¯m Anna Matteo. [03:58.52]¸ü¶àÌýÁ¦Çë·ÃÎÊ51VOA.COM