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Strollerderby
Brits Seek Home Birth—Even When They Shouldn’t
A study published in the British Medical Journal finds that some British women are unhappy enough with the hospital care they have received, or expect to receive, that they are seeking home birth options even when they have medical complications that would make it risky.
The report notes carefully that home birth is as safe as a hospital for low-risk women, and in fact carries a lower risk of prematurity and NICU stays. But it did find that for certain high-risk pregnancies (high blood pressure or diabetes, or previous obstetric complications), the risk of stillbirth/neonatal death goes up from 0.6 to 1.7 percent when delivery happens at home.
Interestingly, in the study, the high-risk women were actually choosing home birth at a higher rate—the only reason for which I can guess is that some of those “previous obstetric complications” involved poor hospital care. Belinda Phipps, chief executive of the National Childbirth Trust, is quoted in the Times article on the study saying: “Women at high-risk of complications are still entitled to choose a home birth [but] I think we have to ask why they are made to feel that their only option is to turn away from the health service.”
A good reminder of why advocates for natural birth and true choice of safe birthing options should not abandon the fight to improve hospital birth and expand options within hospitals. Home birth can work for a lot more people than currently use it. But we need the other options there too.
Postscript: I have to say that it burns me up that the Times article on this study has such a distinctly inflammatory and inaccurate headline (“Risk of stillbirth ‘tripled for women who have their babies at home’). That’s just not true without the “high-risk” qualification, but you know it will be all that 95 percent of readers absorb. Shame on the Times for that.
Photo CC topgold, via Flickr.
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