You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Aetiology
Cohort study
Healthy women with a normal singleton pregnancy at term are not likely to be harmed by planning a home birth
  1. Marc J N C Keirse
  1. Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Flinders Medical Centre, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
  1. Correspondence to: Professor Marc JNC Keirse, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Flinders Medical Centre, Flinders University, Bedford Park, Adelaide, South Australia, SA 5042, Australia; marc.keirse{at}flinders.edu.au

https://doi.org/10.1136/eb-2013-101476

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Commentary on: de Jonge A, Mesman JA, Manniën J, et al. Severe adverse maternal outcomes among low-risk women with planned home versus hospital births in the Netherlands: nationwide cohort study. BMJ 2013;346:f3263.OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text

    Context

    This study is one of the many on maternal morbidity in the Netherlands and also one of many to assess characteristics that differentiate Dutch maternity care from that in other high-income nations. To outsiders, it is usually the high home birth rate in the Netherlands that attracts attention. Having recently established that low-risk planned home birth in the Netherlands is unlikely to harm the baby,1 the question remains whether it will harm the mother.

    Methods

    Over a period of 2 years, from 1 August 2004 to 1 August 2006, de Jonge and colleagues collected nationwide data on serious acute maternal morbidity, defined as admission to intensive care, eclampsia, severe HELLP syndrome (haemolysis, elevated liver enzymes and low platelets) with liver haematoma …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None.