# SUMMATION: Hospitals are not the appropriate place of care for healthy women



## jeremiyah (Feb 13, 2009)

This is ALLEGEDLY what Great Britain thinks of Midwifery...
Excerpts from:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Great+Britain+backs+homebirth+and+midwifery-a013217698

SUMMATION:

"Hospitals are not the appropriate place of care for healthy women."

"We recommend that all maternity services be obliged to publish figures relating to operative intervention and stillbirth and neonatal mortality rates over the previous five years, and to make these figures available to women booking with that service."

"We recommend that the Department of Health vigorously pursue the establishment of best practice models of team midwifery care."

"We recommend that the Department of Health take steps to impress upon all GP [general practitioners] their duty to facilitate the wishes of women, especially in their choice of place of birth and their right to midwifery-only care."

"We recommend that it be a duty placed upon all GP practices to have in place arrangements for women to have home confinement with GP cover or midwife-only cover if they so desire."

"The Report on Maternity health services calls for the reversal of the 1970s trend in British medicine which promotes hospital delivery of all pregnant women. The report has come out strongly in favor of reorganizing maternity services to best serve the physical and psychological needs of the mother and baby, specifically supporting midwifery "

"On the basis of what we have heard, this Committee must draw the conclusion that the policy of encouraging all women to give birth in hospitals cannot be justified on grounds of safety."

"In her 1990 book, Safer Child-birth?, Marjorie Tew analyzed the statistics produced by government studies which sought to justify Britain's move to universal hospitalization.
Tew's analysis showed, in fact, that statistics proved the greater safety of midwife-attended homebirth. (16 TIMES SAFER)

"Commenting on the implications of the Health Committee Report, Tew states that, "The relative strength of these bodies [local organizations] in arguing their case in the light of the Committee's recommendations will determine the extent to which the changes will be implemented. The Report deserves to stand as a landmark in the history of maternity care world wide."

"Given the absence of conclusive evidence it is no longer acceptable that the pattern of maternity care provision should be driven by presumptions about the applicability of a medical model of care based on unproven assertions."

"We conclude that there is a strong desire among women for the provision of continuity of care throughout pregnancy and childbirth and that the majority of them regard midwives as the group best placed and equipped to provide this."

"We conclude that the choices of a home birth or birth in small maternity units are options which have been substantially withdrawn from the majority of women in this country. For most women there is no choice. This does not appear to be in accordance with their wishes."

"We believe that the discussions we have heard about the case of providing continuity of care and the enabling of women to control their own pregnancies and deliveries have been far too heavily influenced by territorial disputes between professionals concerned for control of the women whom they are supposed to be helping."

"We recommend that a hospital delivery unit should: afford privacy; look like a normal room rather than be reminiscent of an operating theatre; enable refreshments to be available for the woman and her partner or companions; ensure the feasibility of the woman being "in control" of her labor. All case notes should contain the woman's wishes for her labor; enable the woman to take up those positions in which she is most comfortable; enable the woman to have with her a midwife she has been able to form a relationship with during her pregnancy."

"We recommend as a matter of priority, that the Department of Health funds the establishment of extensive pilot schemes in the establishment of midwife-managed maternity units within or adjacent to acute hospitals. We further recommend funding of an extensive program of establishing small team midwifery using community-based clinics."

jeremiyah


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## Bobbb (Jan 7, 2012)

Why are you pulling up ancient (1992) positions to support your view and positions written by advocates of your position? Here is the official position of the UK's National Health Service, published on Nov. 25, 2011:

They found that women having their first birth at home had a greater chance of complications leading to injury in the child than women who had planned to go to an obstetric unit in a hospital. *This risk was almost doubled* (odds ratio [OR] 1.75, 95% CI 1.07 to 2.86).

Furthermore, when the sample was restricted to women who had* no complicating conditions* at the start of labour,* there was almost a three-times greater risk for women with planned home births than for women having planned hospital births *(OR 2.80, 95% CI 1.59 to 4.92). . . .

Among women having their first pregnancy who opted for a home birth,* 45% were transferred to hospital before or after delivery.* For women attending a freestanding midwifery unit, 36% were transferred, and 40% of women attending an alongside midwifery unit were transferred.

For women who had previous pregnancies,* 12% with a planned home birth were transferred,* 9% at a freestanding midwifery unit and 12.5% at an alongside midwifery unit were transferred.​
Look, you're not going to be able to twist the universe in order to make the dice you're rolling here come up sevens.

Think of it this way - we've all heard the saying "When you absolutely need the protection of the police at this very instant, they're no more than 5 minutes away." Well, the same reasoning applies here. When you're giving birth at home and a complication arises, the fact that the hospital delivery room with all of the specialists is 10 minutes away does the mother and child as much good as the murder victim relying on police arriving to stop the bullet from the gun.

Those people who don't face a criminal threat don't need to rely on personal firearms and can rely on police protection because THEY DON'T NEED the services of the police at that moment and those mothers who have trouble-free deliveries at home similarly don't need the services of a hospital to deliver their children.

The trick here is to accurately predict before you leave the house that you won't run into a robber or murderer and so you can leave your personal firearm in your gun safe and for expectant mothers they have to be able to predict that their delivery will present no complications. Once these tricks are mastered, then the outcomes of relying on the police for protection and relying on home delivery for safe birthing will be beneficial.

PS. Why did you need to start another thread to present your comment?


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

This is the same subject from another place. We don't need another thread on this crap.


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