HOME BIRTH Q&A
(with only 1 question and many answers)
Q: Is home birth safe for me?
A: That depends…
Home birth is a safe option for low-risk, healthy clients and healthy babies. When attended by a qualified midwife who provides expert care and monitoring throughout the process, interventions are reduced and satisfaction is increased. Home birth can be a good choice for some low-risk pregnancies, but not always recommended for others.
Keep reading if you’d like to know more about the research
Satisfaction
While less than 2% of pregnant people choose planned OOH birth in the US, there are many studies comparing the safety of home birth and birth center births to hospital birth. Studies show that planned home or birth center births, for low-risk clients, attended by qualified midwives, are as safe, or safer than, hospital births. Overall, when birthing at home, interventions are reduced and satisfaction is increased.
Benefits of home birth
The most recent and well-controlled study on the outcomes of out of hospital (OOH) birth compared to hospital birth was conducted in 2015 by Snowden et. al. The authors showed the rate of obstetrical procedures was significantly less in the OOH group. The risk of induction of labor was 30.4% (hospital) vs. 1.5% (OOH), risk of augmentation of labor 26.4% (hospital) vs. 1.1% (OOH), risk of c-section delivery 24.7% (hospital) vs. 5.3% (OOH), and finally, “serious adverse events in the mother were rare in all birth settings” (Snowden et. al., 2015).
What does the research say?
A 2021 study conducted by Nethery et. al. concluded that “planned home births in WA state had comparable safety outcomes to those in Canada, the U.K., and the Netherlands, all locations that have long standing integration of midwives and home birth in their healthcare systems.”
Hutton et. al. (2015) stated that “compared with planned hospital birth, planned home birth attended by midwives in a jurisdiction where home birth is well-integrated into the health care system was not associated with a difference in serious adverse neonatal outcomes but was associated with fewer intrapartum interventions.”
Safety of home birth
In the Snowden research, authors concluded that “the absolute differences in the risks of adverse neonatal outcomes were small [between groups].” Here’s the data: [the rate of perinatal death in planned OOH births was 3.9 per 1000 births; the rate of perinatal death in planned hospital births was 1.8 per 1000 births].
For those that like the nitty gritty details
There are many more intricacies to this study than can’t be described here, you can read the full study here
Research References
Midwives Association of Washington State Position Statement on Planned Births at Home and in Freestanding Birth Centers: https://www.washingtonmidwives.org/uploads/1/1/3/8/113879963/positionstatementonbirthsettinginwa.pdf
Hutton E. K., Cappelletti A., Reitsma A. H., Simioni J., Horne J., McGregor C., & Ahmed R. J. (2015). Outcomes associated with planned place of birth among women with low-risk pregnancies. Canadian Medical Association Journal. 10.1503/cmaj.150564
Nethery, E., Schummers, L., Levine, A., Caughey, A. B., Souter, V., & Gordon, W. (2021). Birth Outcomes for Planned Home and Licensed Freestanding Birth Center Births in Washington State. Obstetrics and gynecology, 138(5), 693–702. https://doi.org/10.1097/AOG.0000000000004578
Snowden, J. M., Tilden, E. L., Snyder, J., Quigley, B., Caughey, A. B., & Cheng, Y. W. (2015). Planned out-of-hospital birth and birth outcomes. The New England Journal of Medicine, 373(27), 2642-2653. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsa1501738