BAAAAYYBBEEEEES

[maereth]

I found an interesting article today:

Home Birth with Midwife as safe as a hospital birth.  Canadian researchers find lower rate of complications.

The mortality rate per 1,000 births was 0.35 in the home birth group, 0.57 in hospital births attended by midwives, and 0.64 among those attended by physicians, according to the study.

Women who gave

Comments

[merlyn4401]

I think midwives are great and should be utilized more often.

The thing that worries me the most (and is born out both by my own experience with midwives and that of several friends) is that as long as things go perfectly, all is well. But many of them totally drop the ball when things go wrong. They either don't realize it at all, or realize it too late, or in one very sad case that I know of, are so anti-medical establishment that it gives them tunnel vision about when it is, indeed, needed.

Of course, if you legitimized it, you could probably provide better training and teaching, so that would be less of an issue.

[maereth]

Yeah, the "what if something goes wrong" contingency is the only thing that would make me not want to do a home birth (and I am also familiar with some very sad stories). It's also why I think we'd see mortality rates jump to over 0.35 per 1000 if this was more wide-spread.

One thing I would hope to see if midwifery become legitimized is a feeling of them being part of the medical establishment, not the anti-establishment (if you know what I mean). I think it would foster greater cooperation between the fields if physicians and midwives had a more open chanel instead of competition.

[merlyn4401]

I agree. And God knows it's worked all over Europe and Australia. It's ridiculous that we can't have the same option here.

[keiki13]

I used midwifes and had Herbert in the hospital, in their midwifery center no less. I also had a doula with me. I think it turned out pretty well. If I were to have another child, I would probably just stay home.

[maereth]

I'm too much of a sissy to do it at home, although I would like to have a midwife assisting rather than a physician. I think they have the ability to spend more time with you and work with you and the baby.

[keiki13]

It was really nice. The woman who was at my birth had been seeing me the entire pregnancy, so she knew my history. It just made it that much more comfortable. I would highly recommend it. Plus, at the hospital, you don't have to clean anything up. Ick.