Home Births May be as Safe as Hospital Births: Review Meta-analysis Study Shows

• Most people believe that hospital births are safer than home births but a new study shows that this is not the case.
• The evidence from this study shows that home births do not increase the risk of perinatal and neonatal death.
• The study in question builds on previous research of the topic.

Summary

McMaster University led a study about the safety of home births in comparison with hospital births. The main question the researchers are interested in is to determine if women who desire homebirths increase the risk of child death. The researchers working on the study statistically analyzed the number of deaths in the two groups. The result shows there is no statistical correlation between the number of deaths and the place of birthing.

Goal

The researchers set out to determine if home births increase the risk of child death or sickness. Aside from this, they want to understand how caregivers, policymakers, women and their families plan for such events.

Investigation

The research is based on a systematic review and meta-analysis of existing published studies on the topic. The data present in their paper comes from 21 studies, published since the year 1990. For the purposes of this research, they examined the data from developing countries. They are New Zealand, Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the United States. In addition to this, the study also considers 500,000 hospital births and compares them with the same number of home births.

Result

The results from the study show that there is no increase in the risk of death or sickness when giving birth at home. But it also gives us a much-needed perspective on the process of home birth and how it is regulated.

Limitations

• The research is based on the results from this study and we have no way of knowing if other examples can disprove these findings.

Source

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(19)30119-1/fulltext

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-08/mu-hba080719.php