Home birth risk study

[boysmom]

I agree, that Amy Tuteur is an annoying idiot. I prefer to read studies myself and look at how well-designed they are. Since I'm not planning on having more children, it's not an interest of mine at this point. I'd have considered it for my 2'nd or 3'd birth except that number 2 was twins, and I wouldn't want to homebirth with that increased risk, and then number 3 was a VBAC attempt, which is slightly riskier as well. Plus, I just had a feeling it wasn't the right choice (and it wasn't, long story, but I had an emergency section.)

I do hate how all the information on websites is biased, you about have to read the original studies, and not everyone has access to that, or has the time to spend reading on it. I do think that homebirth is safe with a qualified provider as long as the pregnancy is not high risk. In my case, I'd have transferred well before things tanked so badly so I don't feel like not attempting to homebirth made a difference for me.

[galaxygirl]

I'm glad we had our baby in the hospital, because I did end up having a c-section and my pregnancy was low risk and without any problems at all. And to be quite honest, the recovery hasn't been nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be. We're not planning on having more kids, so no need for us to make any decisions on future birth plans.

[Katiebug]

I saw The Business of Being Born, and far from being the life changing event billed by the natural birth fanatics, viewing it made me more confident in my choice to see an OBGYN (horrors - a male OBGYN at that!) and deliver in a hospital. It's propaganda, pure and simple.

[latraviata]

I just saw this on Jezebel and thought you all might be interested.

http://jezebel.com/5869719/study-shows- ... fe-so-what

It's a study in the British Medical Journal looking at the risks associated with home birth. They conclude that there is a significantly greater risk of negative outcomes (ranging from death to injury) for women giving birth the first time if they have a home birth rather than a hospital birth. This doesn't seem to be the case for subsequent births however. I personally don't have a strong feeling one way or the other about home births- I think each woman should make the decision that's best for her (although I think unassisted home birth is just reckless). As a scientist, though, I thought it was interesting to see some actual data about the safety of home birth since a lot of the time we tend to mostly discuss anecdotal evidence (which is interesting too of course).

Some studies from the land of the homebirth, the Netherlands:

http://scholar.google.nl/scholar?q=home ... i=scholart