Need help on finding stats for home vs hospital

[FlippyHippy]

NEED HELP! I'm being asked for information and statistics comparing home birth mortality rates to low-risk hospital mortality rates. Apparently comparing hospital vs home birth is "skewed" because it doesn't take into account the high-risk births that occur at hospitals... Anyone know where I could start on this?

[St. Margaret]

Originally Posted by FlippyHippy

NEED HELP! I'm being asked for information and statistics comparing home birth mortality rates to low-risk hospital mortality rates. Apparently comparing hospital vs home birth is "skewed" because it doesn't take into account the high-risk births that occur at hospitals... Anyone know where I could start on this?

Hmm it's definitely out there, specifically looking at low-risk moms only. I think I saw a link on makingthingsup.com, if you searched it for homebirth you might find it... I'll be back with a specific link if I can track it down...

ETA found it, it's http://www.makingthingsup.com/2010/04/is-homebirth-safe/ and she has links to a recent study and more...

A large body of literature indicates that giving birth at home is at least as safe as giving birth in a hospital.

A recent study conducted in Canada, for example, investigated the safety of home birth. [Read more about the study at Science & Sensibility, or in USA Today. Read the study in its entirety here.]

Hope that helps!

[*MamaJen*]

Yeah, of course. I haven't seen any real safety study that didn't compare similar populations of low-risk mothers.
Two big recent studies are the Canadian study that was just mentioned, and also Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives: large prospective study in North America .

[evjolin]

here's the info i have used with family and friends--some are actual studies, others are articles. good luck!!

this is a study published by the british medical journal: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7505/1416?ehom_

this is another study done in canada: http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/181/6-7/377

netherlands study: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7998417.stm

commentaries on the canadian study: http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/181/6-7/359 and http://www.mothering.com/canadian-homebirth-study

this is a pro-homebirth article: http://parenting.ivillage.com/pregna...,,6rl1,00.html

http://www.babble.com/winning-homebirth-debate/

[nashvillemidwife]

www.nashvillemidwife.com/safety.html

[beckyand3littlemonsters]

not sure if this is quite what you wanted but a good little read non the less
http://madeinwater.co.uk/homebirth.html
also this not had a proper look at the 2nd one but it seems to have a lot of home birth related articles there is also
http://www.homebirth.org.uk

[jeninejessica]

I've read through the Canadian one quite thoroughly and it made me squee with excitement. My husband, who just fnished his paramedic schooling, which kind of got him leaning medicalized, even sat there with this look of surprise on his face, and was like "well... ok then!"

[LauraCochran]

Studies on home birth

You're probably familiar with the BMJ study, but the other two are excellent and provide data that compares low risk women planning home birth and similar low risk women planning a hospital birth.
Hope this helps!
Peace,
Laura Cochran, CPM

These are the full text versions of each study:
http://sunrisemidwife.com/CMAJ_Canad...hStudy2009.pdf
http://sunrisemidwife.com/BJOG_Dutch...hStudy2009.pdf
http://sunrisemidwife.com/BMJ_CPM2000.pdf