Our criteria are published. On purpose.
Most practices keep their judgment private. We put ours in writing and hand it to you at intake — because a plan you can see is a plan you can trust, and a change of plan should never be a surprise.
Baseline candidacy
- Singleton pregnancy, vertex (head-down) by 36–37 weeks
- Term birth planned: 37–42 weeks, with labor beginning on its own
- No prior cesarean or uterine surgery
- No hypertensive disease, medication-requiring diabetes, or other significant medical conditions
- Normal placental position, growth, and fluid on ultrasound
- Home within our defined transfer time of the named receiving hospital
Some situations receive individualized review with documented consultation rather than a simple yes or no — among them GBS-positive status, certain prior birth complications, and a history of substance use in stable, documented recovery. We believe recovery deserves individualized medicine, not reflexive exclusion.
The corridors: how candidacy is kept
Between milestones, families stay within agreed corridors — weight gain in the range for your starting point, blood pressure below defined thresholds, full visit attendance, daily preparation practice from 28 weeks. Your app keeps the corridors visible to you every day; only you decide who else sees that. Our visits verify with our own measurements.
First, intensified support — a targeted plan and a sooner recheck. Then, a formal plan review if drift continues. Finally, if candidacy can't be maintained, your plan converts to hospital birth planning — with this practice still at your side, coordinating, advocating, present. You may lose the home setting. You never lose the practice.
Re-verification milestones
| Visit | What is verified |
|---|---|
| Intake | Full history, baseline candidacy, criteria signed |
| ~20 weeks | Anatomy scan: placenta, growth |
| 28 weeks | Labs, glucose screen, blood pressure trend; transfer plan signed |
| 32 weeks | Growth, presentation trend, household oriented to the plan |
| 36 weeks | Formal re-verification: presentation confirmed, growth and fluid, labs, home readiness |
| 39–41 weeks | Wellbeing checks and the post-dates plan |
The transfer plan
Written and signed by 28 weeks: the receiving hospital by name, the clinical triggers agreed in advance — for labor, for you, and for the baby — who calls, how you travel, and the records that travel with you. Your attending provider accompanies you. In a well-run home birth practice, a transfer is not the plan failing. It is the plan working.
One trigger stands above all others: your request. A mother's wish to go to the hospital is always, by itself, sufficient.
This page summarizes the practice's clinical criteria for general education. The complete, signed criteria document — including exact thresholds — is provided and reviewed with you at intake.