4 ms·

It's many years since I had children but we were curious about home birth, and what I understood from looking into it was that there is, apparently, no signific

It's many years since I had children but we were curious about home birth, and what I understood from looking into it was that there is, apparently, no significant difference in overall safety between home births and hospital births. However, there was a significant difference in the reasons things went wrong. Because in a hospital you're more likely to receive unnecessary treatment due to the "cascade of intervention"; and interventions such as C-sections have inherent risk. While at home, you're more likely to have an actual emergency.

MandieD 4y ago
How well do they control for planned home births having lower risk profiles at the outset? For example, even had I been determined to try labor, I would have done so in a hospital, because I was 40 and have a hiatal hernia that will always be at risk of tearing further. I’d be an idiot to have tried at home.
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  I don’t recall. It’s a long time ago. I do remember that there were some other factors like proximity of home to hospital. Mostly the advice we got was, if you have a medical condition that increases risk, then go to a hospital or a birthing centre. But if not, and you live reasonably close to a hospital, home birth is quite safe.
- public_defender 4y ago
  Unfortunately there are still very limited services for birth outside of hospitals in the US. Providers have a hard time getting regulatory approval and insurance, so they are selective in who they will take as homebirth or out-of-hospital birthing center clients. Basically, only people with very low risk profiles can make it through all the qualifiers for an attended out-of-hospital birth. I am speaking from personal experience with births in one of the biggest US cities in the last five years. Anecdotally, I think that some less-dense areas have better CNMW practices and more access to midwives due to traditionally less access to hospitals, but it seems very variable.

MandieD 4y ago

How well do they control for planned home births having lower risk profiles at the outset? For example, even had I been determined to try labor, I would have done so in a hospital, because I was 40 and have a hiatal hernia that will always be at risk of tearing further. I’d be an idiot to have tried at home.

doctor_eval 4y ago
I don’t recall. It’s a long time ago. I do remember that there were some other factors like proximity of home to hospital. Mostly the advice we got was, if you have a medical condition that increases risk, then go to a hospital or a birthing centre. But if not, and you live reasonably close to a hospital, home birth is quite safe.
public_defender 4y ago
Unfortunately there are still very limited services for birth outside of hospitals in the US. Providers have a hard time getting regulatory approval and insurance, so they are selective in who they will take as homebirth or out-of-hospital birthing center clients. Basically, only people with very low risk profiles can make it through all the qualifiers for an attended out-of-hospital birth. I am speaking from personal experience with births in one of the biggest US cities in the last five years. Anecdotally, I think that some less-dense areas have better CNMW practices and more access to midwives due to traditionally less access to hospitals, but it seems very variable.