Place of birth and perinatal mortality

Abstract

Analyses of the published results of national surveys and specific studies, as well as of the official stillbirth statistics, consistently point to the conclusion that perinatal mortality is significantly higher in consultant obstetric hospitals than in general practitioner maternity units or at home, even after allowance has been made for the greater proportion of births in hospital at high pre-delivery risk. Unpubliched results of the British births 1970 survey, which have now become available, make possible a direct and authoritative analysis of data on the safest place of birth. Not only does this make the earlier conclusion more certain, but it confounds the doctrine that obstetric intranatal care is particularly beneficial for high pre-delivery risk births. There is no evidence from recent years that the findings of 1970 are not equally valid in the 1980s.