BMJ 1999;319:1008 ( 9 October )

Letters

Data on babies' safety during hospital births are being ignored

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR---Zander and Chamberlain state that "no evidence exists to support the claim that a hospital is the safest place for women to have normal births."1 They cite the report Where to be Born, published in 1994 by the National Epidemiology Unit.

In 1997 the Confidential Enquiry into Stillbirths and Deaths in Infancy published a survey of 19 348 deaths in Britain occurring during 1994 and 1995, including 873 deaths due to intrapartum events.2 At that time 98.16% of all deliveries occurred in hospital. The chance of a normal baby dying during labour at term was 1 in 1561. The Royal Colleges of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and of Midwives regard this risk as unacceptably high and are working to reduce it still further.

Data on home deliveries in the United States were published in 1995,3 and data for home deliveries in Australia were published in 1998.4 In the American study (a retrospective review of 11 788 planned . . . [Full text of this article]
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This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Young, G., Hey, E., Macfarlane, A., McCandlish, R., Campbell, R., Chamberlain, G., Drife, J. (2000). Choosing between home and hospital delivery. BMJ 320: 798-798 [Full text]  

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