The Safety Of Planned Home Birth With Registered Midwife

I found yet another article today about the SAFETY of homebirth... http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/162421.php

The risk of infant death following planned home birth attended by a registered midwife does not differ from that of a planned hospital birth, found a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

While reading through some of the study - this immediately stood out at me:

The rate of perinatal death per 1000 births was 0.35 in the group of planned home births. The rate in the group of planned hospital births was 0.57 among women attended by a midwife and 0.64 among those attended by a physician.

It also found that babies benefited from homebirth:

Newborns in the home-birth group were less likely than those in the midwife-attended hospital-birth group to require resuscitation at birth or oxygen therapy beyond 24 hours. They were also less likely to have meconium aspiration.

Another great point found that those who planned a home birth were significantly less likely to have a third- or fourth-degree perineal tear. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume this has something to do with the rate of epidurals and episiotomies in hospitals.

To sum up...

Women who planned a home birth had a significantly lower risk of obstetric interventions and adverse outcomes, including augmentation of labour, electronic fetal monitoring, epidural analgesia, assisted vaginal delivery, cesarean section, hemorrhage, and infection.

Need anyone say more? I didn't think so.