» Listings for April 2012

1. Birth statistics in Cornwall 2010 / 2011

   Posted on 2:50pm Saturday 28th Apr 2012

    

   Location	Type	Births per year	Normal birth rate*	Induction rate	Caesarean rate	Instrumental delivery rate	Epidural available?	Birth pool provided?
   Royal Cornwall Hospital (Treliske)	Consultant-led	3700	38.5%	22.4%	22.2%	13.5%	Yes	No
   Penrice Birthing Centre	Midwifery-led	350	95.9%	<2%			No	Yes
   Helston Birth Unit	Midwifery-led	60	>91%				No	Yes
   St Mary's Hospital (Isles of Scilly)	Midwifery-led	4					No	No
   Homebirth	Midwifery-led	182					No	No buy/hire

   
   *A normal birth is one that avoids the following, according to the Maternity Care Working Party:

   • induction of labour (with prostaglandins, oxytocics or ARM)
   • epidural or spinal
   • general anaesthetic
   • forceps or ventouse
   • caesarean section
   • episiotomy

   
   The table doesn't cover local data on the intervention rates (induction, instrumental delivery, caesarean etc) of births that transferred into hospital from a midwifery-led setting. However, recent data from all NHS trusts in England found that women planning a birth in a freestanding MLU experienced a 17% intervention rate, and women planning a homebirth experienced a 10% intervention rate (compared to those who planned a hospital birth, who experienced an average 40% intervention rate).
   
   
   

   2011 data provided by Birth Choice UK, Dr Foster Health and the Birthplace in England study

2. Where is safest to give birth?

   Posted on 12:35pm Tuesday 10th Apr 2012

   A large study published in 2011 compared death and injury rates for the babies of 64,538 low risk women giving birth in a variety of settings in England between April 2008 and April 2010.

   The women planned births either at home or in midwifery-led birth units (like Penrice / Helston) or in consultant-led hospitals (like Treliske).
   
   

   • Birth was found to be very safe with over 99% of babies having good outcomes wherever their mothers planned to give birth
     
     
   • For women not expecting their first baby, there was no difference in outcomes wherever they planned to give birth
     
     
   • For first time mothers, births planned at hospital were safe for babies 99.57% of the time, and births planned at home were safe for babies 99.07% of the time. The authors state this small difference is unexplained, but asserted that homebirth is still safe for first time mothers
     
     
   • It's also interesting to note that women planning a hospital birth experienced a 40% medical intervention rate (e.g caesarean, forceps, ventouse) compared to those who planned births at a freestanding midwifery-led unit (17%) and those who planned a homebirth (10%)
     

    

   Research link:
   
   Perinatal and maternal outcomes by planned place of birth for healthy women with low risk pregnancies: the Birthplace in England national prospective cohort study BMJ 2011;343:d7400