Home Birth
Home birth protocols include a maximum time distance of thirty minutes from home to hospital. The home should be clean and well ventilated with an adequate heat source. There should be running water and telephone service.
In Australia, the United Kingdom and Holland it is very common for women to choose a home birth rather than a hospital birth. In North America, the increasing trend towards home birth can be see with the growing number of women choosing midwifery care and out of hospital birth. The Greenbank Women's Clinic and Birth Center currently delivers about thirty percent of all babies born in Island County with excellent safety statistics.
The World Health Organization has said that there is no proof that hospital births are safer than home births in the developed world. Most of the research on home births in the developed world has found that infant and maternal mortality rates are the same, if not better, than hospital rates. There is also less chance of a woman having a cesarean or induced labor.
A study done in Denmark in 1997 found that women who gave birth at home delivered babies in better condition with fewer problems; the women themselves experienced less stress and there were fewer medical interventions needed in home births compared with hospital births.
Resources for the Safety of Homebirth:
Patricia A Janssen, Lee Saxell, Lesley A Page, Michael C Klein, Robert M Liston,
Shoo K Lee
Outcomes of planned home birth with registered midwife versus planned hospital birth with midwife or physician ; Can. Med. Assoc. J. 2009.
de Jonge A, van der Goes B, Ravelli A, Amelink-Verburg M, Mol B, Nijhuis J, Bennebroek Gravenhorst J, Buitendijk S. Perinatal mortality and morbidity in a nationwide cohort of 529 688 low-risk planned home and hospital births. BJOG 2009.
Kenneth C Johnson and Betty-Anne Daviss
Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives:
large prospective study in North America.
BMJ 2005;330:1416 (18 June).
The study included prospectively reported data from more than 5000 women planning home births with Certified Professional Midwives in the year 2000 in the U.S. and Can, and found that outcomes for mothers and babies were the same as for low-risk mothers giving birth in hospitals, but with a fraction of the interventions.
