Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are planning a home birth for their daughter at their California estate, a report claims

• Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are planning a home birth for their second child, the New York Post reported.
• Markle wanted a home birth for Archie, but ended up going to the hospital.
• Home births are rare in the US and can be safe under certain circumstances.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry and planning a home birth for their baby girl, due this summer, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

The couple had wanted to deliver their first child, Archie, at home and attended by midwives, but ended up going to the hospital, heeding doctors' advice. Archie will turn 2 in May.

Now living in a $14.5 million estate in Montecito, California, Markle and her royal husband will try again to deliver at home.

"She has a beautiful home in California, it's a beautiful setting to give birth to her baby girl," an unnamed source told the Post.

Markle and Harry revealed they were having a baby girl during a tell-all with Oprah Winfrey earlier this month. The child will presumably be the Queen's 10th great-grandchild.

When he saw on the ultrasound they were having a girl, Harry told Oprah he felt "amazing."

"Just grateful - to have any child, any one or any two would have been amazing," he said. "But to have a boy and then a girl, you know, what more can you ask for? But now, you know, now we - we've got our family. We've got, you know, the four of us and our two dogs, and it's great."

The couple ended their official duties as senior royals in April 2020, and later moved to California with Archie. Their daughter will be the first royal born in the US.

Home births can be safe, and may have more appeal after the pandemic

In the US, less than 1% of births are at home, and a quarter of those are unplanned or unintended, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Those who do plan them are often drawn to the prospect of fewer unnecessary medical interventions, which can have negative consequences for mom and baby, according to a consensus paper by three American midwifery organizations.

Oxytocin to induce labor, for example, comes with side effects that can necessitate their own interventions. C-sections can lead to chronic pain and placental complications in women, and respiratory distress in infants.

And, the paper says, "regardless of intervention or outcome, childbearing care perceived by the woman as disrespectful or traumatic" can lead to health consequences and disrupt mom-newborn bonding.

Black women in particular may also be drawn to out-of-hospial options for birth, since institutionalized racism contributes to rates of maternal mortality that are 2 to 5 times higher than white women. It's possible too that the pandemic has boosted interest in home births.

Dr. Sarita Bennett, an osteopathic physician and certified professional midwife who serves as the vice president of the Midwives Alliance of North America, wrote on her organization's website that, in a pandemic, "it only makes sense for out-of-hospital birth to become the safer choice for the majority of people."

While ACOG maintains that "hospitals and accredited birth centers are the safest settings for birth," it says "each woman has the right to make a medically informed decision about delivery."

The organization says it's critical for women pursuing home births to have normal, healthy pregnancies; to be assisted by an appropriately credentialed midwife or physician; and to have safe access to a nearby hospital. Markle lives close to Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, California.