"The majority of people living on the Earth today have been born at home and 90-95% of the entire world's births are normal."
-WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
safety firstThe safety and benefits of midwifery care have been proven again and again in developed countries across the world, including the United States. The World Health Organization statistics show that births attended by midwives have lower infection rates, lower cesarean rates, fewer complications and healthier outcomes- thus, lower overall medical costs than physician-attended hospital births.
In addition, there is no difference in infant mortality between midwife-attended and physician-attended births for low-risk women. Countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden and new Zealand, which have the best birth outcome statistics in the world, use midwives as their main maternity care providers. More than half of all Netherlands babies are born at home with midwives in attendance, and their maternal and infant mortality rate are far lower than in the United States. - World Health Organization |
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Evidenced based care
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"Although many believe that hospitals are the safest environment for labor and birth, research shows that equally good or better outcomes can be achieved in low-risk women having planned home births or giving birth in freestanding birth centers. Because of its inherently non-interventive and more intimate nature, out-of-hospital birth facilitates mother-friendly care."
The Coalition for Improving Maternity Services: Birthing safely at home and in birth centers
THE CURRENT SYSTEM IS
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Both infant and maternal mortality are on the rise and medical interventions during childbirth are at an all time high. The situation is so bad that Amnesty International warned in 2009 that women in the USA “have a greater lifetime risk of dying of pregnancy-related complications than women in 49 other countries.”
According to the Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) US infant and maternal mortality failed to improve between 2000 to 2005. This plateau represents the first time since the 1950s that infant mortality has seen no improvement. The US spends more than any other country in the world on health care and yet is only 33rd in the world in infant mortality. A baby born in Cuba, Slovenia, the Czech Republic or South Korea has a greater chance of living for the first year than a baby born in the US. In fact, a baby born in Singapore has twice the survival rate of a US baby. - Home Birth: Safe and Sane |
Low-risk birth at home as safe as in hospital |
"Compared with women who planned to birth in hospital, women who planned to birth at home underwent fewer obstetrical interventions, were more likely to have a spontaneous vaginal birth and were more likely to be exclusively breast feeding at three to 10 days after delivery."
2015 Canada Study: Large scale study (11,000+ home births) showed home birth with registered midwives just as safe as hospital birth |
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In the fall of 2014, Britain's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has urged women with uncomplicated pregnancies to have their babies at home with qualified midwives stating that:
"they were better off in the hands of midwives than hospital doctors during birth." For these low-risk mothers-to-be, giving birth in a traditional maternity ward increased the chances of surgical intervention and therefore infection. Hospital births were more likely to end in cesarean sections or involve episiotomies, a government financed 2011 study carried out by researchers at Oxford University showed. Women were more likely to be given epidurals, which numb the pain of labor but also increase the risk of a protracted birth that required forceps and damaged the perineum. VIEW ARTICLE |
5% U.S. births attended primarily by midwives 75% European births attended primarily by midwives 70% Midwifery led care in the five European countries with the lowest infant mortality rates - World Health Organization |
"Americans could save $13 to $20 billion annual in healthcare costs by developing a network of midwifery care providers, de-medicalizing childbirth and encouraging breastfeeding."
- Frank A. Oski, M.D., professor and director, John Hopkins University School of Medicine
HOME BIRTH STUDIES
Traditional care backed by evidence
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For this large cohort of women who planned midwife-led home births in the United States, outcomes are congruent with the best available data from population-based, observational studies that evaluated outcomes by intended place of birth and perinatal risk factors. Low-risk women in this cohort experienced high rates of physiologic birth and low rates of intervention without an increase in adverse outcomes.
Planned home birth attended by a registered midwife was associated with very low and comparable rates of perinatal death and reduced rates of obstetric interventions and other adverse perinatal outcomes compared with planned hospital birth attended by a midwife or physician.
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This bibliography serves as a resource for clinicians and others (researchers, educators and policy makers) to assess the quality of the available evidence on planned home birth. "Analysis revealed no statistical difference in mortality between planned home and planned hospital birth and the confidence interval did not allow for extreme excess risks in any of the groups (OR=0.87, 95% CI=0.54-1.41). There were significantly fewer medical interventions, fewer severe lacerations, fewer operative births, and fewer low Apgar scores in the home birth groups."
This study shows that planning a home birth does not increase the risks of perinatal mortality and severe perinatal morbidity among low-risk women, provided the maternity care system facilitates this choice through the availability of welltrained midwives and through a good transportation and referral system.
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Home birth is an acceptable alternative to hospital confinement for selected pregnant women, and leads to reduced medical interventions.
MANA article: Discussion of 2004-2009 stats from nearly 17,000 home births
Rising trend in planned out-of-hospital births with midwives New Analysis reveals women choosing midwife-led, out-of-hospital births at an increasing rate: Data Show More than 40% Increase in Home and Birth Center Births
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