Ashley Graham
The model and first-time mom welcomed her first child, a baby boy named Isaac Menelik Giovanni Ervin, on Jan. 18 via a home birth with no medication.
“I have to say, now that I gave birth and I did it naturally and I felt everything, I feel like there’s nothing I can’t do,” she said to husband Justin Ervin on her Pretty Big Deal podcast introducing their little one. “There’s nothing that could come my way where I say, ‘Oh, that’s too hard, I can’t handle that.’ I went through laboring for six hours naturally.”
Graham opted to deliver her son at home in a birthing pool because her “anxiety would’ve been through the roof” at a hospital.
“To go straight from the pool to the bed with our son and just hold him, what a bond,” Ervin mused.
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Bode & Morgan Miller
The Olympic medalist skier helped his wife deliver their identical twin sons at home last year on Nov. 8.
“I’m really just over the moon that it went as smoothly as it did and that they were as big as they were,” Morgan told PEOPLE. “They’re super healthy. The delivery was fast and not necessarily easy but no issues, no problems, and it was honestly a dream for me.”
“I’ve done a home birth for all my kids. Honestly, it’s the only thing I know,” explained the professional beach volleyball player, who’s also mom to sons Easton Vaughn Rek, 16 months, and Edward Nash Skan, 4, plus stepmom to Bode’s son Samuel Nathaniel, 6, and daughter Neesyn Dace, 11. (The couple’s daughter Emeline Grier died after a tragic drowning accident at 19 months old last year.)
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James & Kimberly Van Der Beek
The Dancing With the Stars contestant and his wife welcomed their fifth child together, daughter Gwendolyn, in June 2018. Like their previous three children, she was born at home with a doctor and midwife on hand (Olivia, their first child, was born in a hospital).
“The category is: Home-Birth Realness,” the Pose star captioned a candid Instagram post announcing baby Gwendolyn’s arrival. Going through a checklist, Van Der Beek noted a “messy bed,” a “vomit bag (unused,” an “inflatable birthing tub (also unused),” a “happy, healthy baby,” a “happy, healthy mom in her own shower right after giving birth” and last but not least, “placenta in a mixing bowl.”
The couple, who tied the knot in August 2010, are also parents to daughters Emilia, 3, Annabel Leah, 5, and Olivia, 9, as well as son Joshua, 7.
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Lake Bell
The Bless This Mess actress “felt very empowered” by her first home birth, which “was this amazing primal bonding” experience with daughter Nova, 5.
“When my daughter came out, she had the [umbilical] cord wrapped around her neck, and it was very scary. She was on my chest and she wasn’t breathing. The midwife gave her three lifesaving breaths on my chest and my husband was there. She came to life and we saw it,” Bell told costar Dax Shepard on his Armchair Expert podcast.
Unfortunately, her second home birth in 2017 had further complications. It also resulted in the umbilical cord getting wrapped around her son Ozgood’s neck, but unlike his older sister, “he was not coming to.”
“Now you’re in really f—ing life and death. Your child is there and the entire room is trying to resuscitate him and they can’t.” Ultimately, he stayed in the NICU for 11 days, Bell shared: “Children’s Hospital Los Angeles saved his life.”
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Kehlani
“This weekend our angel arrived healthy & perfect in every way in our bathroom at home,” the singer wrote in March 2019 after the arrival of daughter Adeya Nomi. “Unmedicated homebirth was the absolute hardest yet most powerful thing i’ve ever done.”
After facing some backlash from followers, she clarified her comments, tweeting:
“All birth is extremely hard and transformative. Homebirth is a medical decision as is hospital birth, all birth is mind blowing & powerful. Using my experience to shame another’s isnt what i want. Power to anyone who brings life forth, it’s a next level journey whichever way.”
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Hilary Duff
Before welcoming her second child, daughter Banks Violet, in 2018, Duff opened up about her decision to have a drug-free home birth following a hospital birth with her first.
“I just started thinking that I wanted a different experience,” she explained. “I’m older now — I love motherhood more than anything. I never thought it could be this way. I never thought I could be so happy and so fulfilled.”
“And I thought to myself that I want to get the full experience of what it is to bring a baby into the world and how incredible our bodies are,” Duff added. “My body gave me this incredible little boy and now I get to have this little girl and I want to experience it to the fullest.”
With three midwives and an “amazing doula” helping her — plus boyfriend Matthew Koma, sister Haylie Duff and her dogs — Duff got her wish, and months later, shared photos of the emotional first meeting between herself and her daughter.
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Emilie de Ravin
Like Duff, the former Lost actress had a medicated hospital birth with her first, daughter Vera, but wanted something different for her second.
Of delivering son Theo “off the side of the bed” in late 2018, de Ravin said, “It felt like I was pushing for so long … Him coming out was, apart from obvious pain, it was a really cool experience,” she recalled. “It was … the main part of why I didn’t want to ever be medicated if I [could] help it.”
“It was so nice to be able to just feel what your body is doing and what it can do and going through it with him,” de Ravin added. “Just being able to have … the physical and emotional connection at the same time. As opposed to just looking in a mirror, like I was with [Vera].”
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Camille Carson
The wife of Midland guitarist Jess Carson opted to have her third baby at home in March 2019 (perhaps in part because of their son’s super-fast arrival in 2017!).
“Camille is the strongest woman I know,” Jess told PEOPLE. “She wanted to do a home birth and she did it 100 percent natural — I’m still just awestruck by her.”
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