To be fed up of the "home birth is risky" misinformation?

What about morbidity?

And what does “intended to give birth…” mean? How many who intended to give birth at home decided to or had to labour and deliver in hospital (and vice versa).
Reading the article on my phone so difficult to find this info. hopefully will read it properly later tonight.

The point is that should things go wrong during a home birth, it is much more risky for the mother and child than if something goes wrong in hospital.

Can't get an epidural at home

I read a lot of research at the time which suggested I was at far higher risk of unnecessary intervention (in itself risky) in hospital. Can't remember the sources but I'm sure if you did a search there is plenty of evidence out there.

The Lancet also published a report which concluded that

"The risk of perinatal or neonatal mortality was not different when birth was intended at home or in hospital."

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(19)30119-1/fulltext

To add to this, unfortunately some women are not 'safe' in hospital if midwives are too over stretched to monitor them properly.

The value of having equipment and professionals to hand is diminished if no one actually spots that you are in trouble.

This is the nub of it all.

The elephant in the room.
People say they chose hospital birth as it is safer, and they wanted to be safe.
But unfortunately, many women do not feel safe in hospital. And not feeling safe makes birth harder.

But if you say home births are only safe if XYZ then that means they’re not ‘safe’ as such. They may be safe for certain group of women, but not as a general rule. Does that make sense? It’s like saying ‘running a marathon is safe’. It’s safe for fit people with no exacerbating health issues but if the average person tried to run a marathon today they’d probably suffer a range of effects from pulled muscles etc all the way to a heart attack. Plus sadly even those who have trained occasionally die running one - the London Marathon usually has a death among its runners.

Plus the measure of a successful homebirth isn’t whether mother and baby are still alive. Like I said upthread I follow a very health young low risk woman who had a homebirth a few months ago. She had a very obstructed 48 hour labour, and an emergency episiotomy just as the ambulance crew arrived meant her baby technically was born at home and alive, but she has had reparative surgery since and is still in pain and unable to even push a trolley round a supermarket thanks to her 8 hour(!) pushing stage. Would you call this a ‘successful home birth’? I had an extended pushing stage with DD1, after 4 hours she was born via a swift forceps delivery without any lasting damage to her or me - I was pushing a trolley 2 weeks later and haven’t had a single episode of incontinence. Another 4 hours pushing would’ve done God knows what to me! Yet her delivery is on paper ‘successful home birth’ and mine is ‘instrumental hospital delivery’.

My first birth required intervention and resuscitation so DD wouldn't be here. My second was easier, resulted in theatre due to a retained placenta.
I wouldn't risk it.

“From the NHS website:
But if you’re having your first baby, home birth slightly increases the risk of serious problems for the baby – including death or issues that might affect the baby's quality of life – from 5 in 1,000 for a hospital birth to 9 in 1,000 for a home birth.
If you've had a baby before, a planned home birth is as safe as having your baby in hospital or a midwife-led unit.
It's rare, but if something goes seriously wrong during your labour at home, it could be worse for you or your baby than if you were in hospital with access to specialised care.”

Whar about the last paragraph @everychildmatters ?

Really? What bit exactly?

She also haemorrhaged before.
She absolutely should have given birth in a hospital. Such a sad, sad outcome.

Giving birth is the single most dangerous point in an adult woman's life.
Where medical intervention is basic, such as tribal Afghanistan, a woman's lifetime risk of death in childbirth can be as high as 25%.
That's just death, that doesn't include those disabled from birth injuries, or long term illnesses such as hashimotos.

But the lady in the article had given birth before and she died. We don’t as of yet know the cause of death but she wasn’t lucky enough to have this apply.

Crossing the road is generally safe. It also always has some risk. Nothing is entirely risk-free. Even if the risk of homebirth is only 0.5% higher than using a hospital that would be a risk I wasn't interested in entertaining.

But for me that decision was made far easier because I also still don't see the attraction of homebirth on any level.

When was that

This is on the NHS website:

But if you’re having your first baby, home birth slightly increases the risk of serious problems for the baby – including death or issues that might affect the baby's quality of life – from 5 in 1,000 for a hospital birth to 9 in 1,000 for a home birth.
If you've had a baby before, a planned home birth is as safe as having your baby in hospital or a midwife-led unit.
It's rare, but if something goes seriously wrong during your labour at home, it could be worse for you or your baby than if you were in hospital with access to specialised care.

@everychildmatters you really are tone deaf and only reading and comprehending what fits your agenda .
I can categorically say that my Grandchild would have been dead if he was born away from hospital.
Absolutely no red flags throughout labour that a huge problem would happen within minutes before birth.
Mum had been monitored throughout and midwife present from arrival at Labour ward . Approximately 3hours . When a problem SUDDENLY became evident the crash team were there in seconds. He developed sudden bradycardia and was in acidosis when he arrived !
19 minutes of no audible noise from that baby was the longest 19 minutes of our lives!
Baby then to NICU .
My daughter had been encouraged to have baby at cottage MLU because of her zero risk factors . Thankfully she declined ,expressing that there is a reason why hospitals have life saving staff and equipment…she was 100% correct.
Edited to say that it wasn’t just having experienced midwives but also paediatrician ,anaesthetist,obstetrician etc that saved this baby life!

I mean this isn't a debate about the risks of 21st C hospital birth vs giving birth in a tent in Sherwood forest attended only by Moorish traveller Morgan Freeman and with a wooden spoon to bite on for pain relief. If it were there would be no question which was safer would there.