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Homefirst® Health Services, under the leadership of founder and
Medical Director Mayer Eisenstein, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., provides a full range of services in family health care in the greater Chicago metropolitan area with four medical centers. Our doctors, dedicate themselves to providing the highest quality of health care standards while maintaining personalized care for each patient and family. We encourage patient involvement in the many decisions made regarding their health care.
S ince 1973 the Homefirst® doctors have
delivered over 15,000 babies at home, served over 75,000 parents, children and now grandparents. They apply the principles of minimal pharmaceuticals to adult medicine with emphasis on Natural substitutes to control chronic illnesses such as: high blood pressure, high Cholesterol, muscle and joint pain, IBS Irritable Bowel Syndrome, GERD, heartburn, acid reflux and other medical conditions. The Homefirst® doctors promote an
integrative evidence based approach to managing illness. The majority of health problems are resolved by our medical staff. Homefirst® offers
complimentary seminars featuring Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, on Natural pharmaceutical alternatives, vaccine law (Dr. Eisenstein is also an attorney) and physician attended natural childbirth in the home.
Homefirst® also sponsors "The Dr. Mayer Eisenstein Radio Show" heard
live coast-to-coast on XM satellite radio channel 170 every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. central time and live in the Chicagoland area on AM1160 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.
The goal of Homefirst® is to introduce you to the world of natural treatments and as such increase your quality as well as quantity of life. We want you to use all of the available resources: books, internet, pharmacists and medical practitioners. We follow the principles of Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, of Primum Non Nocere (Above All Do No Harm). |
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Why should you have your next baby at home?
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The safety of home birth, which is something I have always believed on an
intuitive level, is explainable through statistical data. I have been looking
for years for some way to explain that special edge which home birth mothers
have over their hospital birth counterparts.
The answer came one Sunday
afternoon, while I was watching a football game on television. The commentator
said the home team will win because they have the “Home Court Advantage”.
I had heard this expression many times and all of a sudden I said, “that’s
right! Home birth has the home court advantage!”
The expression “home
birth advantage” puts into words something I have struggled for years to explain
about my home birth practice. Through twenty seven years and 14,000 home
deliveries, one of the most recurring questions asked of me continues to be,
“What makes home birth safe?”
I don̓t think the poor hospital statistics
mean we have incompetent doctors and nurses in our hospitals. In fact, we have
some of the finest doctors in the world. However, our doctors and nurses
working in the hospitals lose one very strong advantage — the home court
advantage.
Can Hospitals be Made
Safe for
Birth?
Could the hospital be changed and somehow become as safe as home for
laboring women? The answer is “No.” There is something about just walking into a
hospital that changes the dynamics of labor. The length of labor is
significantly increased in the hospital. If you put any woman in the hospital,
her labor will slow down or stop because her hormonal balance changes. Her
energies have to go into dealing with her strange surroundings, not into the
birth itself.
When the mother has been in labor for a “reasonable” amount
of time at the hospital without delivering, the doctors believe they must now
“actively manage” the labor. They do not realize that the hospital setting is
the cause of this problem. They will not believe that this wouldn’t have
happened at home.
Many “routine interventions” such as drugs, intravenous
fluids, electronic monitoring and forceps occur during the hours of labor that
wouldn’t have existed at home. Hospitals that allow you to labor naturally for
the first 10 hours won̓t allow you to labor naturally for the next 10 hours. At
home these next 10 are spent getting to know the already delivered baby, not
trying to push the baby out. In other words, the hospital environment creates
many of the problems of labor and then obstetricians have to try to solve them.
Home births occur before the miserable second half of hospital labor has a
chance to start. Home births occur before problems happen. If women knew that
most of them could have half as much labor and no complications, they would all
be choosing home birth! Prior to this century, birth always took place in
the comfort of home with close friends and family surrounding the mother. Giving
birth requires privacy and intimacy. Birth is a very sexual and personal
experience. A warm, intimate and supportive environment allows us to function as
we were intended. |
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