Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Dutch treat

A new study out of the Netherlands shows what we already knew: That home birth for low-risk women is as safe as hospital birth. They studied more than 500,000 births to prove it. While it may be difficult for some to understand how on earth this could be, look at the concept backwards: Hospitals can be more dangerous than your home.

5 comments:

pinky said...

Foul Ball. Foul ball!!! Now Tina. We don't already know that. We have yet to statistically represent that in the United States. You are ignoring other headlines that puff up incidence of homebirth deaths. There have been 4 in the land down under in the recent past. Were those women low risk? I don't know. The headlines often do not give me good data.

Headlines are not good indicators of what we should do clinically. I agree that we may find out that if we change the medical system dramatically we may find that home birth for low risk women is a safe option. BUT we have not crunched those numbers to my satisfaction. ANd many direct entry midwifes in the United States have little to no real training at all. THey were trained by someone who believes birth is always safe and intervention is what causes mishap. That is a slanted view at best. These are not the well trained Midwifes the Dutch are speaking about.

I think maternity care and health care in general has big room for improvement here in the States. But we cannot make decisions based on headlines. We have to make decisions based on rigorous studies. And we have to be intellegtually honest. We have to put aside our preconceived notions in order to find the actual truth. You have heard the saying the truth will set you free? Well first it will piss you off.

Tina Cassidy said...

Pinky, we do know that. There was an enormous study in 2005:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/330/7505/1416
pretty much the same results. This was a HUGE group. The deaths down under recently...tragic but women there seem to be doing unassisted births, which is more of a modern politcal statement. Unassisted birth at home is much different than birth with a trained attendant. But I still love ya.

pinky said...

Is that the Macdorman study? I will look that study up too. I am going to work today and planned to get a copy of the Dutch study. Thanks

pinky said...

Well first I need more information than just the little abstract. So I will get a copy of this.

The questions I will look at is; what did they define as low risk for home and hospital? were they the same type of women? How did they measure these things? What range of time did they use for both? And I will look into what a prospectic cohort study is.

One enormous study done badly does not make proof. I am trying to be intellectually honest. So I will take a look at it.

ANd yes, I still love you too Tina.

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