 Midwife home birth as safe as hospital, says study
Source: Sydney Morning Herald by Louise Hall Date: 04/17/2009
HOME birth assisted by a trained midwife is just as safe for low-risk mothers and their babies as a delivery led by a midwife in hospital, a study of more than half a million women has found.
Midwives
and other home-birth advocates have seized on the research, published
on Wednesday in BJOG: An International Journal Of Obstetrics And
Gynaecology, to put further pressure on the Federal Government to
overhaul maternity services.
The
study of almost 530,000 low-risk births over seven years in the
Netherlands found no difference in death or serious illness among
either mothers or their babies if they gave birth at home rather than
in hospital.
The
study did not compare the relative safety of home births against
low-risk women who opted for obstetrician rather than midwife-led care
in hospital.
Associate
Professor Hannah Dahlen, from the Australian College of Midwives, said
evidence had long showed mothers have higher satisfaction rates when
giving birth at home, but concerns about the impact on the baby had
seen home birth remain under a cloud. "This cloud has now been lifted,"
she said.
But
the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and
Gynaecologists warned against extrapolating the Dutch experience to
Australia, arguing pregnant women are cared for very differently in the
two countries.
The
Netherlands has the highest home birth rate in the western world at 30
per cent, thanks to a streamlined transportation and referral system
that allows women who plan a home birth to access specialist, emergency
obstetric care in hospital should complications arise.
The
authors, from the TNO Institute for Applied Scientific Research in
Amsterdam, said the study disproved the suspected link between the high
rate of home birth and the high rate of perinatal mortality in the
Netherlands compared to other European countries.
Associate
Professor Dahlen called on the Government to "reconsider its silence
over home birth" and urged the Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, to
endorse and fund a Medicare-subsidised system of home birth.
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