Warning about higher risks from home births

Health watchdog gives warning on higher risks of home births

Extract:

"Women should be warned that babies born at home have a higher risk of dying, the health watchdog warns today. But prospective mothers should still be offered the choice of a home birth, as well as going to a midwife unit or hospital.

Final draft guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) suggests that women should be reassured that the risk of their baby dying during childbirth is low wherever they are born - 5.1 deaths per 1,000 births - although risks are higher if serious complications occur at home, rather than in hospital. The draft guidance, in a move that is likely to confuse some expectant mothers, also stresses that they should be told that the research into the various risks is variable and that the evidence is uncertain.

A Canadian study in 1999 found three perinatal deaths among 860 home births, one among 733 births in consultant-led units and no deaths among 563 born in midwife-led units. The new guidance recommends that more research and monitoring of the relative risks is needed, something the Department of Health is about to commission. The government's planned maternity strategy will aim to guarantee that by 2009 every woman will have a choice of whether she gives birth at home, in a birthing centre, or in a hospital."