A home birth carries higher risk for babies of first-time mothers because babies are almost three times more prone to suffer brain damage or die after birth, reports a landmark study. The conventional maternity units in hospitals are the safest place for women to deliver their first baby.
First-time mother are more prone to suffer serious problems at home than in hospital maternity unit, these problems include death of child and injuries to upper arm or shoulder. More than half of women who opt for home birth had to be transferred to a hospital because of complications during labour.
The Birthplace study is the largest study that was carried out into the safety of different maternity settings. The study compares births carried out at home, in midwife-led units attached to hospitals, and birth conducted in doctor-led hospital units. All the women in study had healthy pregnancies and began labour having no known risk factors.
The study showed that the pace of complications, including stillbirth or other problems affecting the baby, was more than five per one thousand births in hospital compared with more than nine per one thousand in home births. It was also found that thirty-six percent of women using maternity units, which are run by midwives, had to be transferred to hospital when complications arose.
According lead author Prof Peter Brocklehurst, there were clear differences between women having their first baby and those having succeeding children. The risk of an unfavorable outcome for a baby are greater for a woman planning her first baby at home than in all of the other settings, but there was no difference between the midwife and hospital obstetric units.
There was no disparity in risk when women were having their second baby, whether that was at home, in a midwife unit or a conventional hospital setting. The rate of transfer from home to hospital was also much lower in such cases. At present, nearly ninety percent of babies are born in doctor-led hospital obstetric units. The study findings were published in the British Medical Journal.
For first-time mothers planning a home birth there was a small increase in poor outcomes, but a greater chance of giving birth without interventions. Parents should have this explained to them, so they can then make up their minds where they would like to plan to have their baby, stated Mary Newburn, head of research and information at NCT.
Dr Tony Falconer, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said, within an obstetric unit, care is provided in a multidisciplinary, multi-professional manner, involving midwives and specialist doctors. Midwifery and obstetric units both function to standard clinical guidelines and medical help is provided only when designated.