Anonymous wrote:I always find it ironic when people assume that those choosing homebirth are uneducated. I've found the opposite to be true - they very carefully evaluate the relative (and more importantly, the absolute risks) of giving birth in a hospital setting vs. a home or birth center setting. I find that there are a handful of friends (and I'd include me, since I do my birthing in hospital settings) who chose hospital settings who have given it equal thought, but most have not. They choose out of blind fear, and aren't participants in their medical care; rather, they are simply passive recipients who don't question anything at all, despite the major lack of evidence-based care one receives in hospitals.
This study is an oversimplification (by the way, it's not news - this study was published in march - why rouse the rabble now?) with little detail available in the abstract, but it only looks at one set of risk factors, which is an apgra and neurological assessment. The relative risk is high but the absolute risk is low and I wasn't able to see any details about controls, confounding factors, limitations, or study size, which I use to judge a study for how much it means to me.
In the meantime, the well-respected cochrane group reviewed the available literature this year, and updated its former conclusion, confirming that planned homebirth with qualified midwife attendance can be just as safe as a hospital birth. And, the cochrane review did not leave out extremely important evidence that was not considered by OP's linked to study, such as the fact that interference with normal labor processes in a hospital setting, and hospital protocols themselves often lead to birth complications, ranging from relatively small (increased maternal pain and discomfort during delivery) to large (unnecessary surgery, hemorrhage, premature induction, fetal or maternal death). These things do happen.
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD000352/benefits-and-harms-of-planned-hospital-birth-compared-with-planned-home-birth-for-low-risk-pregnant-women
So, OP, keep trying to push your views; that's fine. There is no legitimate need to educate here, though. Your assumptions are off. People who choose midwife attended home births have given the birth setting, including their relative and absolute risks vis a vis delivery in a hospital, the proper consideration already. But you don't care about that, because you're just slinging sh*t, aren't you?