Home Births - Be Prepared
I know home births are right for some people, and fewer medical procedures may actually benefit the mother. However, the outcome of the newborn must be taken into account as well. One of the women who was in the infertility support group I ran got pregnant naturally and had her baby on her 44th birthday.See also: www.getpregnantover40.com for more on getting pregnant over 40 and pregnancy over 40
She decided to have a home birth but had complications when the placenta would not come out. She was rushed to the hospital and had to have transfusions. her baby was fine, but she could have lost her life.
This article explains the benefits and risks:
From the article: What Are the Risks? There are two sets of risks: to the baby and to the mother. The most serious risks fall to the infant. The ACOG's Committee on Obstetric Practice cites an analysis of studies comparing planned home births to hospital births. They found, most key, that planned home births carried two to three times the risk that the baby would die compared to planned hospital births. "What women sometimes forget is that even in the most low-risk circumstances, emergencies still happen. The baby can still get in trouble," says Kilpatrick. The ACOG committee's research also found that first-time mothers were far more likely to need a last-minute transfer to a hospital -- 25 percent to 37 percent of them, compared to only 4 percent to 9 percent of home birthing women who had had at least one other child. The transfers resulted from lack of progress in labor, concerns about the fetus, a need for pain relief, hypertension, bleeding and a poorly positioned fetus. Mothers themselves had fewer medical interventions like epidurals for pain or fetal monitoring in the home births. No maternal deaths at home were reported in the analysis. In fact, mothers did better with fewer medical procedures: they were less likely to suffer lacerations and infections. But, as noted, this decreased risk to the mothers comes with a greater risk to their newborns.
from:
huffingtonpost.com
