Safety of Home Births vs Hospital Births (Split from Alicia Silverstone...)

No actually they're not similar. The issue with hospital births is that pregnant women undergo more unnecessary, dangerous procedures than home births. Please read Misconceptions by Naomi Wolf.

Edit to add:
You can also read the Amnesty International report on the failure of American hopsitals (and other heathcare providers) to protect women's maternal health. For example, the report says:

Think to yourself, 'do midwives perform C-sections in home births?' and then think why an educated woman who values her life might choose a home delivery.

Skeptical,
You don't get to change the topic from health of the mother to health of the baby. Obviously both are important and a woman will decide for herself how much she is willing to risk, but the fact remains that birthing in a hopsital puts women's health at risk.

The study you cited began by saying:

For those unfamiliar, the term "intervention" means induction of labour, epidural or spinal analgesia, general anaesthesia, forceps or ventouse delivery, caesarean section, or episiotomy. And also, it should be noted that many of these procedures are promoted as "necessary" in a hospital setting although the data does not support this. Women are simply more likely to birth "normally" (without intervention) outside of the hospital setting.

The study that Skeptical cited says:

And the study claims this in the principal findings:

The study you cited even concluded this:

Your study was also in England where healthcare is universal and so many of the problems highlighted in the Amnesty report don't exist. That means, giving birth in an American hospital may be even more dangerous than a planned home birth for a healthy pregnancy.

link to the study that SkpicalVegan cited: http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d7400

"citation needed"???
I offered a book, a report by Ammesty International, and your own first reference. Please read them all thuroughly and get back to me.

Edit to add:
Do you also advocate for all animals to give birth at veterinary offices?
Should we all exercise at the doctor's office lest we suffer a heart attack during a run? Should we do all our cooking at a hospital just in case we accidentally cut or burn ourselves? Should we only ever drive within 2 miles of a hospital in case we get into a car accident? Hospitals are for emergencies; there's no good reason to deny women the option of giving birth in a comfortable home environment if that's what they want.

I'm not missing that. Sure, some of the interventions are actually necessary. But a lot of them aren't. Your argument basically boils down to the idea that we ought not to do natural things with our bodies without medical intervention from the beginning - although the interventions increase the risk of danger - because in the rare case that it requires medical intervention it might take a tiny bit longer to obtain that intervention.

I did both. Look at the first post in this thread. See where I typed (page 9 of the summary report) with a link? That's a citation. That's how web citations work, they are links. Any decent blogger knows that. As for quoting the relevant passage, I did that too, wherein I said C-sections in the US are twice the rate recommended by the WHO and that risk of death following C-sections is over 3 times higher than for vaginal births.


Have you ever actually attended a birth? Have you been in a hospital and seen how difficult it is for women to make their own medical decisions in that circumstance? I only had to witness one birth to know I wouldn't do that myself. One intervention after another... all on nothing truly resembling "informed consent." Have you seen a woman giving birth saying "NO!" to the episotomy and the doctor just ignoring her? This scene happens all the time.

That is not OK.

I am not making policy recommendations, nor am I "representing the home birth movement." I am saying that AS A WOMAN, I don't trust hospitals to protect my rights during a birthing experience. I wouldn't trust them to deliver my baby if I were to have one and I don't expect any other woman to wait around until hospital policies or national healthcare laws change. Given the current circumstances, home births are good option for women who have low risk pregnancies.

I am advocating that women who are healthy and pregnant know all their options and all the facts. I am suggesting that it's perfectly reasonable for a woman to choose to give birth at home and in fact it's likely to be a healthy choice. My sister was born at home. A friend of mine just gave birth at home. It happens all the time and it's perfectly natural.

My advice is to have someone with you during the birth who is willing and able to be your advocate 100%. This person can have no other duty (nurses and doctors are very good at distracting family and friends with little "jobs" while they do whatever they want to do to the "patient").

Inform all your family and friends of your plans in advance, too. And ask them to promise not to try to talk you out of it at the last minute. Remind everyone that birth is a short term pain but the risks from unnecessary interventions can be permanent (for example, a rare but real risk of an epidural is paralysis).

Skeptical,
Let me again ask... Do you think all animal should give birth at veterinary offices?

Again, let me point out that I am not making arguments against hospital births or for home births. I am stating the facts: home births for low risk pregnancies are safe and less invasive. The ideal scenario for a home birth would be with a trained midwife (or two) and within a close distance to a hospital in the case of an emergency. ALL the studies show that women who give birth at home experiences far fewer interventions than women who give birth at hospitals. That means women who have home births suffer fewer complications due to those interventions and fewer deaths related to interventions.

Skeptical, you keep saying that women can refuse these interventions if they want, but that's false. Hospitals routinely deny women access to information/ don't allow them to make truly informed decisions or give informed consent. That was highlighted in the Amnesty International report. Read the full report from page 79 onward. Here is a link: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/defa...lydelivery.pdf
Here are some quotes from the Amnesty International report, titled
"DEADLY DELIVERY – THE MATERNAL HEALTH CARE CRISIS IN THE USA":

"Women who prefer, if possible, to avoid medical procedures – such as c-sections – have reportedly faced pressure and coercion by providers to accept unwanted medical procedures."

"A national survey found that 25 percent of women who had either a primary or repeat c-section reported feeling pressurized by a health provider to have a c-section; 11 percent reported pressure to induce labor."

"only 16 percent of white women had any choice in the decision about episiotomy (a surgical incision through the perineum); for African-American women the figure was only 4 percent"

One of the OB/GYNs interviewed explained "We talk about health care and autonomy, but in reality, in the US, that does not apply to childbearing and pregnant women…The environment is structured to be coercive.”

"An individual woman’s ability to actively participate in her care is hampered by a lack of information about care options and the failure to involve women in decision-making regarding their own health care."

"Studies both in the USA and in other countries have documented the safety, benefits and positive outcomes for mothers and infants of a midwifery model of care." [...] "However, in the USA, women who want to explore the option of having a midwifery model of care face a number of barriers." (page 80-81 of the Amnesty report)
Point is: in the US currently, the only way for many women to obtain "a midwifery model of care" is to have a home birth.

It's worth noting that as a country we essentially stand alone in this "hospitals are the best choice for birth". Most other industrialized nations offer women more choices on how and where to give birth and they're provided with detailed information about the potential positive and negative outcomes. In fact, both Canada and the UK fully support home births for low risk pregnancies and they are more likely to be covered by the national healthcare.