any statistics on where births take place?

[wednesday]

I was specifically wondering how common homebirth is. I know it's common among mamas here at MDC, but in real life I've only known a handful of women who had homebirths.

Also wondering how many babies are born in freestanding birth centers as opposed to hospitals.

[Patchfire]

The statistics I see are that 99% or 95% of births in the US take place in a hospital. I suspect that the discrepancy is whether or not birth center births are counted as 'in a hospital' or 'out of hospital,' because 1% seems like it's probably close to correct, when you think about how many people there are giving birth in any given day/month/year.

[Guest*]

The 2002 CDC stats say:

Ninety-nine percent of births in 2002 were delivered in hospitals,
a rate essentially unchanged over the past several decades. Out-of-hospital
births occurred predominantly in a residence (65 percent);
27 percent were in a freestanding birthing center. These levels have
fluctuated only moderately since 1989.

This is from the birth data for 2002. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr52/nvsr52_10.pdf

[wednesday]

Wow...I had guessed that "alternative" birth places would be at least 3-5% or so. But then there are only two freestanding birth centers in my state, and I bet there are plenty of areas that are far from any homebirth midwives.

[flapjack]

UK figures are only 2% homebirths nationally, and that's with a legal right and a midwife provided on the NHS. My town has an 8% homebirth rate, though :)

[TurboClaudia]

it does vary from state to state in the u.s., however. i believe the last statistic i saw about oregon was 6% of births here took place at home or at a freestanding birth center. birth researcher judith rooks has done some research about this, and you might look at robbie davis-floyd's research, too. www.davis-floyd.com

warmly,
claudia