Pregnant women are being advised against home births, experts claim.
This is due to the fact that home births bring about dangers to both the mother and the baby in the womb. Experts compared the actual experience to be "as risky as allowing children not to wear a seatbelt." They also claimed that if something goes wrong upon giving birth at home, there is a much higher risk of the babies becoming disabled for life.
Professor Julian Savulescu, from the faculty of philosophy at Oxford University, and obstetrician and gynecologist Associate Professor Lachlan de Crespigny, of the University of Melbourne, claimed that when problems occur at home there can also be a delay in transferring the mothers and their babies to specialists. "Vital delays are inevitable in some cases. These can lead to disability which was avoidable if the delivery had occurred in a hospital."
However, researchers said that they acknowledge the fact that hospital births are not without risks and home births are more often than not seen as a more natural option for giving birth. "However, labor and delivery is a time of high-risk, and home birth may expose the future child to unreasonable risk of potentially life-changing disability for benefits that may be comparatively small. Home birth appears to be a risk factor for the future child, or at least so uncertain, that it should be discouraged, pending further research."
On the other hand, Elizabeth Duff, a senior policy adviser at the National Childbirth Trust (NCT), said: "Home birth should be considered a mainstream option for women in the UK alongside birth centers and hospital maternity units, provided women have a straightforward pregnancy."
