Wow…Seriously sad.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/21659.php
https://www.thecnj.co.uk/camden/2008/050108/news050108_04.html
https://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/14/nation/20080514095201&sec=nation
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/all-b1-5stroke-q.6380687apr28,1,1393508.story
https://alexanderharris.co.uk/article/Mother_dies_after_the_birth_of_her_first_baby_2242.asp
Well that is enough for now….Here is an interesting article:
Chad Skelton , Vancouver Sun
Is giving birth at home any more dangerous than giving birth in hospital?
Home births are controversial and some people, including doctors, are convinced they’re a riskier option than giving birth in a hospital.
But a growing body of research – including some in B.C. – suggests, when done properly and attended by a midwife, it can be just as safe as delivering in a hospital.
In 2002, Patricia Janssen, a perinatal epidemiologist at UBC, published a study comparing 800 planned home births in B.C. to about 1,300 births in hospital.
The two groups of women were carefully matched, to ensure both involved low-risk pregnancies and women of similar economic backgrounds.
What Janssen found was home births were no more risky, either for women or their babies, than delivering in a hospital.
In fact, the risk of some complications and interventions was actually lower among women who gave birth at home.
For example, just 6.4 per cent of home births resulted in a C-section (after transfer to hospital), compared to 11.9 per cent for hospital births attended by a midwife and 18.2 per cent for hospital births by a physician.
Just 3.8 per cent of home births involved an episiotomy, compared to 10.9 per cent for midwife-attended hospital births and 15.3 per cent for doctor attended hospital births.
And the risk of infection, while small in both cases, was five times higher in hospital: 35 per 1,000 births compared to seven per 1,000 for home births.
Since the 2002 study was published, Janssen and her colleagues have been working on a followup, looking at all 3,000 planned home births in B.C. between 2000 and 2004.
The results have not yet been published.
But Janssen said the data appears to confirm the earlier study: home births in B.C. are no more dangerous than those in hospital.
“What we know… is that planned home birth with a regulated midwife does not carry excess risk compared to a planned hospital birth,” she said.
Janssen said it’s important to stress the safety of home births in B.C. is due in large part to the fact midwives here are well-trained and regulated.
They also rigorously pre-screen women, to ensure those with high-risk pregnancies are denied home births and sent to hospital instead.
In fact, home births can even be called off because of bad weather since it could make it difficult to transfer a woman or her baby to hospital.
Transfers take place in about one quarter of home births, some during labour and others after.
“Our midwives practise cautiously,” said Janssen. “So, if in doubt, they transfer.”
The focus on regulation in B.C. is important, because studies in places with less rigorous regulation of midwives have found home births can be more dangerous than giving birth in hospital.
One study in Australia, for example, found infant death rates for home births were higher than the national average, something the study blamed in large part on the failure to screen out high-risk pregnancies, such as twins or breech births.
In contrast, studies done in countries with well-regulated home birth programs, such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, have found similar results to Janssen’s study.
One of the chief criticisms of home births is, if something does go wrong, the mother and her baby are far from expert help in hospital.
“The fact is that rare, bad things happen in childbirth,” said Dr. Paul Thiessen, a clinical professor of pediatrics at UBC. “And if you’re having [the birth] in the comfort of your own home … are you more or less likely to have a good outcome compared to expert people available at your immediate beck and call?”
Janssen agreed hospitals have the advantage of speed when problems with a pregnancy are discovered.
But the fact rates of injury and death are no higher for B.C. home births suggests something else must be going on.
One possibility, said Janssen, is that because home births are supervised by two midwives, problems are identified more quickly than they are in hospital, making the increased delay in getting to hospital a wash.
“In a home birth you have the focused and undivided attention of an experienced practitioner who may be able to pick up complications very early as opposed to being in a crowded hospital where there’s a mix of both experienced and new practitioners who have other responsibilities
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