Home Birth study as printed in ABC News


For the non clickers like me



As a friend said "I always knew I was a know it all smarty pants "

I like to think that this study shows that home birthing isn't just in the realm of the uneducated fringe dwellers aka dirty hippies :wink:

But seriously - I do take a little back-up to some of the wording, but the overall message is good. To me, it reads that in their study 75% of women seeking home births are women who have completed higher education, are aware of how to research things and it implies that HB women are researched about their choices.

But it is sad that we are losing such knowledge with the loss of home birth assisting midwives - if we are not careful, we will lose all knowledge of such things and that frightens me

What a silly article.Very few women give birth at home. Simple manipulation of statistics.

I'm not surprised at all OP! It fits in with what I know about homebirthers in general. The more I read about it, the better homebirth is looking as an option for women with low-risk pregnancies.



I don't know how you can say the statistics have been manipulated. There are enough women having homebirths to be able to gather information about them as a group.

Excuse me? You realise that you are posting in the HOME BIRTH SECTION?

And FYI in South Australia alone in 2010 there were 134 planned home births reported according to this report

http://www.health.sa.gov.au/pehs/PDF-files...es%20Report.pdf

*shrug* it may not be a huge amount, but it is still enough for a study IMO.

Most dirty hippies I know are university students.

shhhhhhhhhhh, don't give my secret away!!!!

Yes I do realise I am posting in the home birth section, is that a special club or something?? I am10000% for home birth. Study is still ridiculous. Don't make the mistake of blinding supporting and agreeing with everything you read to support a cause.

How many planned home births last year? How many hospital births? I guarantee you the 2nd number is exponentially bigger.Why are they comparing the level of education for a group of homebirthers with that of the general female population?
That 75% of homebirths were university educated, does NOT mean university educated women are more likely to choose homebirth than not. University education does not mean that one is more informed than one of the 25% of homebirthers that choose a homebirth.

I guess the other thing to take into account is the cost of home birth, particularly in some areas of Australia, makes it financially unviable for a lot of women who WOULD like to birth at home.

As education and financial status tend to be linked, it would be intersting to see whether the results hold if you partial out that effect.

Want to know something? I put off posting this article because I *knew* that someone would take offense at this - someone always takes offence

It is not saying that 75 of tertary educated women have home births - it says that out of all the home birthing women surveyed, 75% have some sort of tertary education. There is no comparison - that exists in your reading of it.

Yes, approx 99% of births are hospital births - does that mean that the remaining 1% are not allowed to be counted?

Alacritous~Andy - Yeah, one comment I said to a friend was I would love to get my hands on this study - they are currently looking into it for me - but nearly everyone I know (and being part of the HB communtiy here, it's small LOL) who home births, maybe tertary educated, but currently stay at home parents or working part-time and not currently in their field of training - it would be very interesting to see the states Australia wide - don't think that will happen though

I wonder if the percentage of women choosing elective c-secs that are tertiary educated is similarly high? It makes sense as you would expect the more educated a woman is the more likely she is to research her birth and be pro-active in choosing the birth she wants, no matter which end of the birthing spectrum she may choose.

That would be interesting as well!

I liked this article/study because a lot of the anti homebirthing retoric is often that we are uneducated, ignorant of risks in home birthing, blah blah blah. This impled that in actual fact, many home birthing women are intellegent, educated women.



Agree, don't agree - I still like it

Very interesting! It certainly fits in with what my IM told me, that the majority of the women are tertiary educated (also that most are having a second/subsequent birth). Of interest she also mentioned that many of in the women homebirthing in her experience are tertiary educated health professionals.

Makes me a very stereotypical homebirthing woman then

Unfortunately I've heard a similar statistic for anti-vaccers, so that sort of takes away any positive for me.

I don't think it means that 'smart people homebirth' - there are lots of different reasons for choosing whichever birth. But it probably means more likely to have access to different options, financially, and by researching. I have met a lot of different people who were very positive about homebirth, but the reality is that it takes quite a bit of time and effort to find a midwife these days.

I think that would be interesting to investigate too. Similarly, I wonder about VBAC stats, and whether those are skewed towards educated women too?

I would love to see more research done into how much time/thought women give to birthing choices, before and during pregnancy. Maybe those with a history of study are more adept at researching options? Or more highly value research findings?

Autonomy over birth choices, and empowerment would also be interesting measures. I have heard lots of women speaking about their birth options in terms of what they were "allowed" to do. I wonder if tertiary education provides more critical analysis skills? I wonder if more educated women feel more empowered to question health professionals? And feel better equiped to seek out and defend making a choice contrary to the popular paradigm. Whereas (perhaps) those with lower levels of education MAY be more likely to defer to the authority of their health providers without questioning/challenging their advice?

Then, of course, there is always the impact of the mighty dollar. In many cases, money buys choice. If you are going private, you have a choice of OB, so you can hunt down someone who you feel is supportive of your choices. Whereas, if you are going public, you don't really have that option. So any research would really need to take into account how choices are impacted on by access. And access isn't just restricted by money. Location has a big role to play as well. For example, I would love a homebirth, but due to a lack of IM in my area, that wasn't an option for me.

All completely hypothetical, of course, just pondering.

I think that the hardest thing with any research into women's choices around birth is that so many factors come into play, and so many of them are interdependent.

I think the discrepancy in education levels is so wide (75% c/f 25%) that even if you took financial status into account there would still be a difference.

Not all women who have homebirths are well off. Some pepole rely on the baby bonus to pay their midwife's fee, otherwise they could not afford it.

I would agree.
I know several midwives who have homebirthed even though we all work within the hospital system.

Most people I have encountered through work & personally who go against the mainstream "normal" in childbirth or health matters ( rightly or wrongly) are usually fairly well educated this includes
-Homebirthers
-Vaginal Breech birthers
- El C/S for no bloody reason
- determined VBACer's

a lot of educated women also just work within the mainstream too..........there is probably just a higher proportional ratio in the fringe groups.

When I was in the UK breastfeeding rates were appalling compared to here ....it was well know there that breastfeeding women were mainly from the educated middles classes .