HAVE YOU READ THIS?????? herald articale..."home birth is not a safe birth"

[Julie Doula]

You have to wonder at the motivation behind such animosity. I don't believe that genuine concern for the well being of Australian women and their babies is driving this.

The fact that midwives were appealing for insurance so that their practice won't be outlawed next year has a lot more to do with the current furore than 'safety'/

I agree Devine's unethical and intellectually dishonest reporting is beyond the pale. I hope women in society will realise the manipulation, the scare tactics, the control and greed driving this unwarranted attack on midwives, and women desiring to access continuity of care from a self-chosen midwife.

They are going through this in USA, too.

This media frenzy has promted me to carefully examine some recent research and articles. As I organize them, I'll share them here. All consumers have a right to know how scandalous and unscrupulous powerful lobby groups and their media puppets are being on this issue.

I'll share some interesting links for now, happy reading!

Feb. 11, 2003.
Obstetricians Use Dubious Method In Attempt to Discredit Homebirth—Motives Questioned by Parents, Midwives, and Public Health Researchers
http://mana.org/WAHomeBirthStudy.pdf

Meta-analysis of the safety of home birth. Oleson, BIRTH 24:1, March 1997
Conclusion: Home birth is an acceptable alternative to hospital confinement for selected pregnant women, and leads to reduced medical interventions. The meta-analysis of the best observational studies revealed no significant difference in peri-natal mortality between home and hospital birth. Thus, no empirical evidence supports the claim that hospital births are a safer option than planned home birth backed up by a modern hospital system.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/j...TRY=1&SRETRY=0

Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives: large prospective study in North America.
Johnson & Davis, BMJ 2005, 330; 1416
Participants: 5418 women supported by certified midwives who planned to give birth at home when labour began.
Results: Transfer rate: 12.1% C/S rate: 3.7% Episiotomy rate: 2.1% Epidural: 4.7% infant deaths (intra-partum & neo-natal): 1.7 per 1000
Conclusion: Planned homebirth for low risk women in North America using certified professional midwives was associated with lower rates of medical intervention but similar intra-partum and neo-natal mortality to that of low-risk hospital births in the USA.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7505/1416

PDF file: Understanding Birth Better: Answers to Questions about: Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives: large prospective study in North America. BMJ 330, 1416. June 18th, 2005. Quote from page 8 of 10: "The Stanford PHD is an important complement to our study, finding similar intra-partum and neo-natal death rates as the CPM2000 study did for more than 3000 planned home births and 800,000 low risk hospital births... when the author compared 3385 planned home births with 806, 402 low risk hospital births, he consistently found a non-significantly lower perinatal mortality rate in the home birth group.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/330/7505/1416
http://understandingbirthbetter.com/...sMay2008v2.pdf

Recent studies show homebirth is safe, episiotomy is harmful.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/08/prweb268797.htm

Outcome of planned home and planned hospital births in low risk pregnancies: prospective study in midwifery practices in the Netherlands
Wiegers, Keirse, van der Zee, Berghs. BMJ 1996;313:1309-1313
Subjects: 97 midwives and 1836 women with low risk pregnancies who had planned to give birth at home or in hospital.
Results: There was no relation between the planned place of birth and perinatal outcome in primiparous women when controlling for a favourable or less favourable background. In multiparous women, perinatal outcome was significantly better for planned home births than for planned hospital births, with or without control for background variables.
Conclusions: The outcome of planned home births is at least as good as that of planned hospital births in women at low risk receiving midwifery care in the Netherlands.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstr...e2=tf_ipsecsha

Feminism and birth in Australia: moving from stat-wrangling towards a reproductive choice perspectiveby Lauredhel on April 11, 2009
I’ve been looking for the most recent official stats on homebirth and hospital birth mortality in Australia. I can’t find 2007 or 2008 figures, but there are 2006 figures available.

Australia’s mothers and babies 2006. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Perinatal Statistics Unit, Published December 2008.
Most births in Australia occur in hospitals, in conventional labour-ward settings. There were 269,835 women who gave birth in hospitals (97.3%) in 2006. A further 5,460 women gave birth in birth centres (2.0%). Planned homebirths and other births, such as those occurring unexpectedly before arrival in hospital or in other settings, were the two categories accounting for the smallest proportion of women who gave birth (2,053 women, 0.7%).

In 2006, 708 planned homebirths, representing 0.3% of all women who gave birth, were reported nationally. The highest proportion of homebirths occurred in the Northern Territory.

Of babies born at home in 2006, all were liveborn. The mean birthweight of these liveborn babies was 3,687 grams (Table 3.34). The proportion of liveborn babies of low birthweight born at home was 0.8%, and the proportion of babies born at home that were preterm was 0.7%

There were 2,091 stillbirths in Australian in 2006. 2,091 of these occurred in hospitals or birth centres. None occurred at home.
http://viv.id.au/blog/20090411.4484/...-in-australia/

Here are the statements by ACOG and RANZCOG on home births:

ACOG: http://www.acog.org/from_home/public...02-06-08-2.cfm
RANZCOG: http://www.ranzcog.edu.au/publicatio...nts/C-obs2.pdf

Now compare this with UK's Royal College of Gynecologists:

http://www.rcog.org.uk/womens-health...ce/home-births

The summary reads:

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) support home birth for women with uncomplicated pregnancies. There is no reason why home birth should not be offered to women at low risk of complications and it may confer considerable benefits for them and their families. There is ample evidence showing that labouring at home increases a woman's likelihood of a birth that is both satisfying and safe, with implications for her health and that of her baby.

Notice the emotive, condescending and persuasive language used in the ACOG statement versus the measured voice of reason in the RCOG statement. Now, which one will RANZCOG emulate?