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In home births, scientists see little risk
New study: Home births in low-risk pregnancies are usually safe
Women who give birth at home are sometimes reproached by others for acting irresponsibly. Others say a pregnancy "is not a disease" and does not have to be done in a clinic. Health experts point out that certain risks can occur. Researchers conclude in a new study that in many cases it is safe to give birth at home.
Long dispute over pros and cons of home births
In Germany and most other Western countries, the majority of children are born in a hospital. However, many pregnant women prefer to give birth in a birth house or at home. After all, a pregnancy is "something natural and not a disease". Some people criticize this and refer to health hazards that can occur. For a long time there has been a dispute over the pros and cons of home births. In an inconspicuous pregnancy course, home births are according to experts as safe as deliveries in clinics. Study results from scientists in Canada are now strengthening the position of those who choose to give birth outside a hospital.
Homebirths are hardly dangerous according to a study. Picture: mmphoto - fotolia Homebirths in low-risk pregnancies
According to Canadian researchers in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), home births are safe for low-risk pregnancies. According to the study, which analyzed data from the province of Ontario, this applies to mothers giving birth to their first child as well as to those who gave birth before. The scientists reported that the risk of planned hospital births was "not significantly" different from planned home births. In a message from the dpa news agency, the results from Canada are rated very differently by a birth physician and a midwife from Germany.
Two percent of babies are delivered by birth
According to the information, in Germany less than two percent of children are born home. This proportion has been relatively constant for years. On the other side of the Atlantic, the rate seems comparable: the research team to Eileen Hutton of McMaster University in Hamilton reported that in Ontario about every tenth birth is accompanied by midwives, about a fifth of these are home births. By 2009, midwives in Ontario had to document their work and submit it to the province's Ministry of Health in the southeast of the country. The scientists have now evaluated almost 11,500 reports on planned home births from 2006 to 2009 and compared them with as many planned deliveries in hospitals. Researchers looked at stillbirths, infant deaths in the first four weeks of life and complications such as resuscitation. Excluded from the analysis, however, were pregnancies with increased risk. Among other things, mothers with previous illnesses such as heart disease or diabetes were counted. And also multiple pregnancies, pregnancy complications or a birth before the 37th week of pregnancy.
Three-quarters of the women implemented a planned home birth
According to the study results, 75 percent of women without increased risk who had planned a home birth, their project ultimately. One in four women switched to a hospital for a short time. Of those who wanted to visit a clinic, 97 percent did so. Around one third of the pregnant women (35 percent) gave birth to a child for the first time. According to the researchers, the incidence of deaths among home births was 1.15 per 1,000, in hospitals it was 0.94. No deaths were reported to the mothers.
German expert comments critically
"Among women who wanted to give birth to their child in Ontario at home with midwives, the risk of stillbirth, infant death, or serious birth complications did not differ from women choosing to hospitalize with midwives," the researchers report aloud dpa. "These results were true for the entire group as well as for the subgroups of first-borns and mothers who had given birth before." Criticism of the investigation comes from Germany among others. This is how the physician Birgit Seelbach-Göbel, director of obstetrics at the University Hospital Regensburg, sees a distortion of the result due to the study design. In the end, one in four of the housewarming women had been taken to a clinic for delivery at short notice, with 45 percent of the first-time mothers. Nevertheless, these results were counted as home births. According to the Vice-President of the German Society for Gynecology and Obstetrics, about every sixth woman who plans a home birth will ultimately be relocated to a clinic in Germany. For first-time mothers, it is even about 30 percent.
Safety of mother and child
Katharina Jeschke from the German Midwives Association, however, said the Canadian study confirms data from Germany. The head of the Society for Quality in Out-of-Home Obstetrics said: "If you have a good medical history, the safety of both mother and baby is the same for home births and hospital births. This is clear from the study and also from German data. "According to the expert, if women who were planning a home birth were still taken to a clinic, this would generally not be due to a medical emergency. Only 1.3 percent of short-term transfers to a clinic in 2013 were carried out in a hurry. (Ad)