Home Birth Safety within Canadian system

[mamafeliz]

Another large study has been published demonstrating safety of home birth option for low risk women. Critical to note is that home birth in Canada is carefully regulated and has strict exclusionary criteria. The US home birth system, largely unregulated, has some essential evolution before it can make the same safety claims. Both US home birth providers and US hospitals must come to the table to create a safe and comprehensive system for women and families choosing home birth.

Just as interesting to note within this study are c/s rates and epidural rates within the planned hospital birth with physician group, 11% and 27.9% respectively. The US OB system is broken with a c/s rate of over 30% and some hospitals with epidural rates of over 90%.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-09-03-midwife-home-birth_N.htm

The study in its entirety can be downloaded from the Canadian Medical Association Journal site.

[Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP]

My supervisor and I were just talking about this....very interesting.

So much we have left to do here.

[dishes, BSN, RN]

Thanks for the article. I would like to see a study that reports the incidence of nurses who chose home birth vs hospital birth (I chose hospital birth because I wanted obstestrical intervention to be immediatly available if it was needed).

dishes

[Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP]

*raises hand* First birth was hospital. Second birth, looking to homebirth.

[mamafeliz]

I had two home births. I had strong, supportive OB back-up, CNM expertise guiding my labor, strong respect for the fickle nature of birth, and willingness to transfer at the first sign of trouble.