Canadian Home Birth Study Finds Home Birth As Safe or Safer Than Hospital Birth

By Jennifer Margulis

A study by Canadian researchers published in the September 2009 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) concludes that planned home births with a midwife in attendance have comparable or better outcomes than hospital births in British Columbia, a province of Canada with some 4.4 million inhabitants.

The researchers studied over 2,800 planned home births attended by the same group of registered midwives over a 4-year period.

They found that women who planned home births had lower rates of invasive and negative interventions than women who had planned hospital births, whether the hospital births were attended by a midwife or a doctor.

Women birthing at home were less likely to experience:

    •    Electronic fetal monitoring
    •    C-sections
    •    Episiotomies
    •    Augmentation of labor with oxytocin or amniotomy (artificial rupture of the fetal membranes)
    •    And the use of drugs during labor, among other interventions 


While there were at least six infant deaths in the hospital births, there were no infant deaths among the women who gave birth at home. 

Mothers who had a planned home birth had far fewer severe tears or postpartum hemorrhage, and health problems for the mother was much lower among women who had home births. Home birth proved safer in almost every category measured.

Newborns born at home had fewer incidents of:

    •    Birth trauma
    •    Meconium aspiration
    •    Need for resuscitation at birth
    •    Need for oxygen therapy beyond 24 hours.  


However, they were at a slightly higher risk to be admitted to the hospital after birth. The researchers hypothesize this was for jaundice treatment, for which the newborns born in the hospital would simply stay longer.

This was a highly controlled study of all comparable births attended by the same group of midwives and comparable physician-attended hospital births.

Despite this study and dozens of other large studies showing home birth is safe, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) cites safety reasons for its continued opposition of home birth. 

This Canadian study adds to the growing evidence that the widespread American bias against delivering babies at home is not guided by science but by politics, business interests, and misinformation.