A planned home birth attended by a registered midwife may be safer than a hospital birth, according to a study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.The study looked at 2889 home births attended by regulated midwives in British Columbia, Canada, and 4752 planned hospital births attended by the same cohort of midwives compared with 5331 physician-attended births in hospital.

The infant death rate per 1000 births was 0.35 for planned home births, 0.57 for midwife-attended hospital births and 0.64 for physician-attended hospital births.

In addition, women who planned a home birth had a significantly lower risk of obstetric interventions and adverse outcomes, including augmentation of labor, electronic fetal monitoring, epidural analgesia, assisted vaginal delivery, cesarean section, hemorrhage, and infection.

“Women planning birth at home experienced reduced risk for all obstetric interventions measured, and similar or reduced risk for adverse maternal outcomes,” writes study co-author Dr. Patricia Janssen.

CMAJ – September 15, 2009 ;Epub.

www.cmaj.ca