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The problem though? For some reason homebirth advocates and of course midwives seem to think that 2 in every 1000 births ending in death is okay. And you know in all honesty seeing that number alone (and well not being a statistician or anything) I’m inclined to say well, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. But then I start to wonder how does that compare to hospital births in this nation.
Shouldn’t That Be What We All Are Asking?
I mean women who are looking for the best and safest place to give birth sure are likely to ask. So we look on the other side of the coin and they are saying that according to the CDC database hospital births over the same time as MANA’s study, with white women, at term was .38/1000. I’m not going to go all crazy with numbers and percentages here because I know there are people like me who the math of it all just doesn’t make much sense, but let us just say, if that’s right that 2/1000 at home does not look anywhere near as safe and certainly is not safer than hospital birth.
And then when you hear from the midwives themselves who were a part of this study and they are saying how they reported things, you really have to wonder how much worse can these numbers get? It was not a well controlled study. That 2 deaths per 1000 births might actually be twice that or worse even. It’s really hard to have faith in this study.
But it gets even worse. You know how everyone always says homebirth is great for low risk women? Yeah, well, your odds definitely are better if you’re low risk, but here in lies the problem in American homebirth. No one seems to have thoroughly defined what exactly is low risk. If homebirth is supposed to be done with low risk women, then why are vaginal birth after c-section being performed at home? Why are multiples being born at home? And really, why are breech births being born at home? Why at the very least at the conclusion of this study FIVE years ago have we not put regulations on who can have a homebirth? Out of 222 breech homebirths 5 ended in death. Who knows what other long term effects will be felt for the rest of those breech births, but we do know now according to this “study” that 20 out of every 1000 breech homebirths will end in death. That’s math I can do, that’s 10 times greater than homebirth as a whole.
So in the last five years I have to ask, what did MANA do? It seems to me they have just been burying these preventable deaths and doing a lot of talking, but not taking a lot of action in things. And I would also like to point out that of all of the homebirth midwives in the United States only 20-30% did this voluntary reporting. You know what that means to me? That the results are even more gloomy than these numbers suggest. Now I could be a glass is half full kind of gal in this instance, but you see there has to be a reason that 70% of the midwives didn’t want to be included. No matter what their excuses are for not being a part of it (too much work inputting the data, are afraid of what their outcomes will show, or just don’t care) it just doesn’t sit well with me. If I’m proud of the work I do and am in the business of helping people, then I would shout my stats from the rooftops and do everything I could to make sure my good stats got out there. Seems that the 30% represents the best of the worst. If giving birth at home is where your heart lies, then you need to understand that it’s really sub standard care you are receiving. No matter how anyone tries to make those numbers sound good to you and how much you are told it’s a variation of normal or homebirth is as safe as hospital birth for low risk women, that’s just not true.
Don’t Be Duped.
MANA is trying to sell you something. They are selling you a substandard of care. And while they have finally revealed the death rates they are really hoping that you’ll be impressed by their low intervention rate and high breastfeeding success rate instead of focusing on what we really should be concerned about. Perhaps those hospital interventions are just what’s needed to keep babies alive. Well, there’s no perhaps about it. That’s exactly what’s needed. Those babies survive at much higher rates BECAUSE of hospital interventions. Even with the most qualified of midwives your chances simply are just better in the hospital to begin with, but homebirth in the United States attended by a CPM/DM is frighteningly dangerous no matter how MANA wants to try to distract you with their other stats.
If nothing else can we all just please agree that we need to define what low risk is and any midwife who does not follow these guidelines will have real world consequences? No slap on the wrist. Lets stop burying babies who have died in homebirth over and over again. Lets admit that there needs to be far stricter regulations for homebirth. And lets admit this needs to happen now, if not then 5 years ago when this information SHOULD have been made available.
Not after pressure from people and not after being told we won’t pay for your services until we can see your outcomes. It’s well past due that babies start dying in homebirth when they easily could have been saved in hospitals.
I want so much more to happen by the time my daughters are giving birth. If they choose homebirth, I want it to be with a highly educated attendant. Not with someone who just recently was required to have a high school diploma. I want her to have someone who will be honest and straightforward with her that there are certain things that will risk her out of homebirth. Of course I will be buzzing in their ear telling them these things, but their care provider should be providing them with the risks. True informed consent. That’s what I want to see and I have 3 (well 4, my son’s future wife) reasons to want this. Even if I’m done having children I still have a stake in this and I want what’s best for my future grandchildren. We can’t live in the past, we can only move forward and moving forward means using all of the technology and resources at our disposal. Not to mention the information we have from the past. We can do better for pregnant mothers, so lets do better. Lets stop talking and lets start doing something to change that 2/1000 statistic and make it more like .38/1000 as seen in the hospital. That way saying homebirth is as safe as hospital birth for low risk women will actually be closer to being true.
What do you make of the new MANA stats that were released this week?