Give birth at home, Britain to urge mothers-to-be

British women are to be advised to give birth at home as part of a revolution in childbirth policy in Britain that will reverse decades of medical convention.

Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Health, is to "challenge the assumption", prevalent since the 1970s, that the safest place to give birth is in hospital and that home births can be dangerous.

In what is being billed as a historic shift in the politics of childbirth, British doctors will be told to offer all pregnant women the chance to deliver their baby at home with the help of a midwife and their own choice of pain relief.

The Independent on Sunday reported yesterday that Tony Blair's Labour Government is planning a "strategic shift" in childbirth policy away from hospital delivery and has commissioned research to support the case for home births. and "challenge the assumption that births should take place in hospitals".

The Secretary of State wants to "demedicalise" pregnancy.

In Britain, just over 2 per cent of births are home births, although there are huge regional variations.

In New Zealand, the figure is 3 to 5 per cent of births, said the Ministry of Health's chief adviser on child and youth health, Pat Tuohy.

"They are a good thing for the right woman. The most important thing is that they have the systems in place to support them."

New Zealand College of Midwives national director Karen Guilliland said that in the 1990s, between 10 and 12 per cent of births were at home.

"It's gone down since we closed our rural hospitals and our support systems went away and we centralised services into the tertiary hospitals."

Home birth was a safe option, she said, citing new college statistics on 1300 home births which showed success on a range of measures including length of labour, pain relief and neonatal resuscitation needs.

Preliminary research by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence shows that women who give birth at home may be more satisfied with the experience than those who give birth in delivery rooms.

- INDEPENDENT

- Additional reporting by Martin Johnston