Home birth complications 'less common' than hospital

The BBC recently ran a report outlining some research that was published in the British Medical Journal recently which related to a study in the Netherlands that concluded that, particularly for second time mums, a planned home birth is less risky that a planned hospital birth. 

In the Netherlands around 20% of deliveries are home births.  Here in the UK they account for only 2.4% of deliveries.  It seems that levels of risk depends on the systems in place to deal with emergencies and in the UK there isn’t always close proximity to specialist services, should things go wrong.

A UK study in 2011 concluded that home births carried a higher risk for babies of first time mothers, but for second time mothers the risk to babies was the same for home deliveries, midwifery led units or doctor led units.

Sadly, the many cases that we handle where there has been a poor outcome at delivery demonstrate that it is not only about where the delivery takes place, but also the time and day of the week, with many problems arising ‘out of hours’ or at weekends.