A new short film about New Zealand families and their home birth experiences aims to empower more Pacific women to give birth at home.
According to the Health Ministry, Pacific women made up less than one percent of mothers giving birth at home, the lowest rate in the country.
Currently around five percent of all recorded births in the country are home births and the ministry hopes to see more.
Midwife Sharon Robinson funded the film and said awareness is lacking around the safety of home births.
"There's a cultural and a spiritual and an emotional and psychological safety that often isn't part of the equation at the hospital when safety is being considered," she said.
"Not that we're disregarding physical safety at all, but actually there are risks of taking a women to the hospital when you look at that whole picture."
