Uncertainty is likely to persist, but some knowledge would be better than none

We do not know whether birth at home is safer or less safe than birth in hospital. This ignorance will surprise pregnant women, who are presented with strong opinions, usually against home birth but occasionally for. Neither side is able to provide much useful evidence to support its case.

A randomised controlled trial could have been carried out in the 1950s. Austin Bradford Hill had shown the way.1 Alas, it was not. Government reports …