Home or Hospital Birth?
Reported January 08, 2009
TAMPA, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Each year, 99 percent of all the babies delivered in the United States are born in hospitals, but many midwives around the country say homebirths are becoming more popular. The question of home or hospital has become a hot debate.
Dawn Felski is expecting. So is Marsibil. Felski’s baby will be born at a hospital just like last time when unexpected complications sent her to the operating room.
“If I had been at home or someplace else, I might not be here today to tell you about it,” Felski told Ivanhoe.
Marsibil wants a homier delivery with a midwife.
“Being in a hospital, I can’t help associate that with being sick,” Marsibil told Ivanhoe.
Home births are often cheaper and allow families and friends to take part. Midwives call it a safe, more natural alternative.
“Healthy women anticipating a normal, healthy delivery do fine,” Char Lynn Daughtry, midwife and founder of Labor of Love Birth Centers in Tampa, Fla., told Ivanhoe.
The American Medical Association wants stricter regulations on at-home delivery, insisting the safest place for labor and delivery is in the hospital. Obstetrician Catherine Lynch, M.D., of Tampa General Hospital in Tampa, Fla., says even low-risk deliveries can have dangerous, unexpected complications that midwives aren’t trained to handle.
“Even birth centers that are across the street from the hospital are not in the hospital itself, and you’ve got a lag time,” Dr. Lynch told Ivanhoe. “You’ve got a delay that could be profound to both mom and baby.”
Some studies show about 16 percent of women planning to give birth at home are transferred to a hospital for delivery. Childbirth educator Melissa Taylor has seen both sides. Though her twins were born with complications at a hospital, her youngest, Addison, was born at home.
“I think it’s our bodies,” Taylor told Ivanhoe. “We should have the choice to give birth how we want to, whether it be in a birth center, at a hospital or at home.”
There’s conflicting data on whether the death rates for home births are higher. Some studies have suggested more than a two-fold increase in death rates among babies delivered at home. However, a recent British study found home births had a mortality rate similar to that of low-risk hospital births.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Bea Rowell
Labor of Love Birth Centers
Tampa, FL
(813) 833-9989
Ellen Fiss
Public Relations
Tampa General Hospital
Tampa, FL
[email protected]
