Home Births Slightly Riskier For Babies But Deaths Still Rare Overall: Study Looks at Trade-Offs

Home Births Slightly Riskier For Babies But Deaths Still Rare Overall: Study Looks at Trade-Offs Women who plan to give birth outside of the hospital have a considerably lower risk of cesarean deliveries and other obstetric interventions than women planning hospital births, but home-birthing mothers’ babies have a slightly increased likelihood of dying, according to a new study of Oregon births in the New England Journal of Medicine. Thanks to a change in the information recorded on Oregon birth certificates, this study is the first to reliably estimate outcomes for U.S. mothers and their newborns based on the setting where a woman chooses to give birth.