I just read ACOG (The American Congress of Obstetricians & Gynecologists) Committee Opinion No. 476: Planned home birth.

It starts out:

“Although the Committee on Obstetric Practice believes that hospitals and birthing centers are the safest setting for birth, it respects the right of a woman to make a medically informed decision about delivery. Women inquiring about planned home birth should be informed of its risks and benefits based on recent evidence. Specifically, they should be informed that although the absolute risk may be low, planned home birth is associated with a twofold to threefold increased risk of neonatal death when compared with planned hospital birth.”

If you go to the following link to read the opinion you will find on the right side of the page some links to articles related to the opinion. 

 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21252776?dopt=Abstract

The above link is reflective of at least the first three studies.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19720688

It is titled: “Outcomes of Planned Home Birth with Registered Midwife Versus Planned Hospital Birth with Midwife or Physician”

It cites the following statistics:

·         The rate of perinatal death per 1000 births was 0.35 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.00-1.03) in the group of planned home births

·         The rate in the group of planned hospital births was 0.57 (95% CI 0.00-1.43) among women attended by a midwife and 0.64 (95% CI 0.00-1.56) among those attended by a physician

The way I remember math 0.35 is smaller than 0.64, so it seems the data doesn’t agree with their conclusion.  Wow! A committee that renders an opinion by political whim and ignores the data, who would of thought that could happen?

Dr. Holmes