Family Forum / Pregnancy / Pregnancy / June 2005

http://time.blogs.com/daily_rx/

Planned Home Births See Less Medical Intervention

Women didn't always give birth in state-of-the-art hospitals, strapped
to fetal monitors and steps away from an operating room equipped to
handle any labor emergency. But a new study suggests that giving birth
the old-fashioned way, at home under the care of a midwife, may be just
as safe as having a baby in a hospital. And the birthing experience of
women who choose to deliver their babies at home may be less likely to
include such medical intervention as forceps, caesarean section and
epidurals.

In the largest international study of its kind, researchers in Canada
analyzed labor-and-delivery records of more than 5,000 planned home
births in the U.S. and Canada, comparing them to over three million
singleton, low-risk births at U.S. hospitals in 2000. More than 87% of
the women who delivered at home, with the help of trained midwives, did
not need to go to the hospital during labor or delivery. Among those
women, the incidence of medical interventions, including forceps,
epidural, and caesarean section, were lower than for the women giving
birth in hospitals. Only 9% of women delivering at home required help
stimulating labor, while 19% of women giving low-risk births at
hospitals needed this assistance. The researchers found an even larger
difference over the use of episiotomy, the widening of the vaginal
opening with scissors to ease the passage of the baby's head-33% of
hospital-delivering women underwent this procedure, while only 2% of
midwives used it in their home deliveries. The authors caution,
however, that home births aren't for everyone-but for women with
uncomplicated pregnancies who are expected to have a low-risk delivery,
many believe there's no place like home.

By Alice Park | Posted June 17, 2005 | Permalink | Back to Top