Gisele Bündchen insisted on having a home birth, ignoring doctor's warning

Supermodel Gisele Bündchen has revealed she gave birth to both her children via at-home water births, despite doctors telling her the practice was "too dangerous".

In a revealing passage from her new book, Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life, the 38-year-old said she ignored her doctor's advice to not give birth to her eldest son, Benjamin, in a bathtub at home in 2009.

"The doctor told me that it was too dangerous for me to have a home birth," she wrote.

"He said that Benny was in an unusual position, my hips were too small, and the odds just weren't in my favor."

Bündchen is married to American football star Tom Brady, and says he wasn't exactly on board with her plans at first either.

"Tom wasn't enthusiastic about a home birth either," she explains. "Only after I had him watch a half-dozen natural-birth movies did he finally agree."

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The former Victoria's Secret model said she has "always dreamed of giving birth naturally, at home" and explained her dislike of hospitals began after her twin sister, Pati, developed double pneumonia when they were 10.

The Brazilan-born model's 16-hour labor ended up taking place in her Boston home in December 2009.

She was surrounded by candles and listened to music by Krishna Das. However, she admits her plan to give birth in her bathtub was not well thought out.

"I'm 5'11", and the bathtub was, well, not a whole lot bigger than that," she wrote.

Bündchen wrote that giving birth to Benjamin and her daughter Vivian, in 2012, at home were the "two most extraordinary experiences" of her life.

The fashion icon's memoir has made headlines since it hit shelves yesterday, including for comments she made about how part of her 'died' when she became a mother.

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"When a baby is born, a mother takes a step backwards. A part of her dies," she wrote.

"It was also the death of me-ness, of ego, of putting myself and my own needs first."