Safety of home births

A study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, compared planned home births and planned hospital births among low-risk women over a three year period.  It measured the rates of stillbirth, neonatal death or serious events, as well as noting the rates of  medical interventions such as assisted vaginal births or CS deliveries.

The results indicated that in the cases studied the risk of serious complications were similar between the two groups and that interventions were higher in the hospital group. The study authors suggest that for low risk pregnancies that hospital deliveries were no safer, however UK experts have called for caution in applying the results directly to our own context.  It does however add to the building evidence of the relative safety of home deliveries.

Louise Silverton, RCM director for midwifery, said : “It is important for women to know that all births carry some element of risk, however small, no matter where they take place. It is wrong to assume that for women at low risk of complications, hospital birth is safer than that in a midwifery-led unit or at home…There is a growing amount of evidence, as this research also suggests, about the reduction in medical interventions such as caesarean sections, among women who have a home or midwife-led birth. This is also something we would encourage women to think about when they are planning their place of birth.”

For more information see the RCM report here

Read the research abstract here