Bounty

Midwives have expressed their "dismay" at comments in a leading medical journal advising women to avoid giving birth at home.

The Lancet journal reported the findings of a US study which concluded that the risk of child death doubles when a healthy woman has a home birth, and triples when congenital defects of newborns are factored out.

The Royal College of Midwives has rejected the claims and strongly criticised a Lancet editorial which highlighted the research which was published in June. The union said childbirth is "not an illness" and that home births are generally safe.

RCM general secretary Cathy Warwick said: "We are deeply disappointed and dismayed that Lancet has published an editorial indicating that women would choose to harm their baby in favour of their own needs by choosing a home birth.

"The editorial also cites research that is incomplete and methodologically flawed. There is no evidence to suggest that hospital births are safer than home births."

Dr Joseph Wax, of Maine Medical Centre in New Hampshire, studied data for around 550,000 births in North America, Europe and Australia. He said that, for healthy women, home births doubled the risk of a newborn baby dying. When children who are born with defects were taken out of the equation, he found that the rate of deaths increased by three times.

In the UK, 3% of all births take place in the mother's home, three times the rate of US home births. In The Netherlands however, around one third of all childbirths happen at home.

The Lancet wrote that the US research gave "the strongest evidence so far" that giving birth at home "can be harmful to newborn babies".

Dr Wax's findings were published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology,

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