Cindy Crawford has been a trendsetter on many fronts. She isn't just the face of many iconic fashion moments, however. Cindy also was one of the earlier celebrity moms to embrace home births.
The trend of giving birth at home started to rise in the late 1990s. In the US, there were 35,578 home births in 1997. By 2017, that number had jumped to 62,228, according to the NIH's Library of Medicine.
Although she didn't originally intend to, Cindy gave birth to both her children at home. The experience meant a lot to Cindy, who was introduced to the possibility by a yoga instructor. The experience was so wonderful when she welcomed Presley in 1999 that she opted to do it again with Kaia in 2001.
With an increase in patients keeping hospitals beyond busy, many pregnant women are considering home births as an alternative. Cindy decided to share her knowledge in a live Q&A in partnership with birth doula and photographer Carson Meyer.
It's hard not to think of how many people's lives have been changed in the past few weeks. Among the heaviest thoughts are for expectant mothers. A beautiful birth experience was so close for so many women. Now, with hospitals changing their policies about birth partners and deliveries, expectant mothers are having second thoughts.
Cindy Crawford feels for these moms, as so many of us do. Cindy decided this would be a good time to share her experience with home births, as many moms are now considering them as an option. She took to Instagram to announce a Q&A with birth doula and photographer Carson Meyer.
Cindy announced the event on Monday. "This is a challenging time for all of us but my heart especially goes out to expecting mothers and their partners," she wrote.
"As birth policies at hospitals are changing every day, many women are curious about #homebirth. I’m going live with @ccmeyer tomorrow at 12pm PST to talk about my experience giving birth at home ❤️ Questions welcome."
During the live Q&A, Cindy revealed home births weren't even on her radar during the first half of her pregnancy with Presley.
"I never considered home birth. I never thought about it," she said. She'd planned to have her baby boy in New York City and planned on getting an epidural.
She opened her mind to the idea after attending a prenatal yoga class at 20 weeks pregnant. She explained that the instructor presented all the options available to women, which is what made her reconsider. It would be another 10 weeks before she made the decision to give birth at home.
Cindy admitted that husband Rande Gerber wasn't on board at first, but he came around. She said she "felt supported" in the choice. She also said that she felt much more secure in her decision as her relationship with her midwife developed.
"I had a real relationship with her," she said. "When I started seeing her at 30 weeks and would come see her every week — yes it was checking vitals, but also getting to know me so she understood what might come up for me in the birth experience."
The experience was so positive that Cindy decided to go for it again with her second pregnancy.
"The tricky part is, what do you do with a 2-year-old when mom is in labor? You don't want to scare them," she said of Presley when it came time to have Kaia. It worked out that she went into labor overnight.
This isn't the first time Cindy has opened up about the experience. She discussed it during an interview with SheKnows. She went into further detail about her yoga instructor's influence.
"She also talked about how our bodies are meant for birth," Cindy recalled. "We all got here somehow! So I started thinking about natural childbirth. And my mom was a 16-year-old mother. She also had natural childbirth and didn’t have any drugs. She had all four of her kids naturally."
Her yoga teacher was the one who introduced her to her midwife. "I spent way more time with her than I would have ever spent with an OB," she said.
"She wanted to know what my mom’s births were like. What our relationship was like. She wanted to know your frame of mind."
Cindy did have some moments where she struggled, however. "When she finally came, the hard part for me was that I wasn’t good at pushing. So I was pushing for three hours," she said.
"So, it was hard. It hurt. But the cool thing was … so many people, when you have your baby, they’re like, 'Who delivered your baby?' You’re like, 'Oh Dr. So and So.' But I delivered my baby. It was so empowering for me. I could take that and frame that into being a new mom when you’re sort of insecure. I felt like I just ran a marathon."
Being at home also really put Cindy at ease. "You’re not hearing another person down the hall screaming or ambulances or people rushing about around you," Cindy noted.
"You chose who to have with you. Within an hour, there was no one in my house. I was there with my baby and my husband. I sat and had dinner with my husband, on a doughnut."
Rande also was happy with the decision when all was said and done. "I think my husband, probably like a lot of husbands standing at the hospital, they’re kind of spectators," she pointed out.
"They don’t know what to do. There’s no job for them really. But here, my husband had to step up. He was the man. As much as he thought it was weird that I wanted to have a home birth, shortly afterwards we went to visit a friend who had a baby in the hospital and he was like, 'I’m so glad that we did it at home.'"
Cindy's biggest advice for expectant moms is to do their homework. Examine and discuss all your options with your loved ones. Any birthing experience can be a beautiful one if you feel prepared and empowered by that information. Even among the chaos of our current world, many women are experiencing moments of magic on their own terms.
