A new study at McMaster University found that women who choose to give birth at home have the same likelihood of perinatal or neonatal death as a woman who gives birth in a hospital.
When it comes to the birth of a child, the help of qualified specialists seems to be a necessary and sufficient condition for the health of mothers and babies. At the same time, home birth is perceived as unreasonable and unsafe.
But what does science think about this?
But – this is very important – we are talking only about those women whose pregnancy is considered risk-free.
“More and more women in developed countries are choosing home births, but concerns about their safety do not go anywhere. Our work demonstrates that, in terms of certain risks, childbirth at home and childbirth in a hospital are not particularly different from each other, ”the authors write in an article on The Lancet EClinicalMedicine.
The work, which, as the scientists explain, is the first systematic review and meta-analysis on the topic, used data from 21 studies published since 1990 in Sweden, New Zealand, England, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States.
In total, the study compared the results of approximately 500,000 planned home deliveries with the same number of deliveries that were supposed to take place in the hospital.
And although all this, of course, does not mean that you can neglect the advice and recommendations of a doctor when choosing the type of childbirth, the new findings are definitely an occasion for reflection.
