Newsroom

Advocates of planned home birth have emphasized its benefits for patient safety, patient satisfaction, cost effectiveness, and respect for women's rights. A clinical opinion paper published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology critically evaluates each of these claims in its effort to identify professionally appropriate responses of obstetricians and other concerned physicians to planned home birth.

Throughout the United States and Europe, planned home birth has seen increased activity in recent years. Professional associations and the European Court have publicly supported it, and insurance companies have paid for it.

"These recent statements by professional associations and by the European Court should not be allowed to stand unchallenged," says lead author Frank A. Chervenak, MD, the Given Foundation Professor and chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medical College, and obstetrician and gynecologist-in-chief and director of maternal-fetal medicine at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. "Positions taken about planned home birth, in our view, are not compatible with professional responsibility for patients. We call on obstetricians, other concerned physicians, midwives, and other obstetric providers, and their professional associations not to support planned home birth when there are safe and compassionate hospital-based alternatives and to advocate for a safe home-birth-like experience in the hospital."

For its evaluation of patient safety, the authors examined evidence of obstetric outcomes and found that planned home birth does not meet current standards for patient safety. Unexpected complications that develop in labor during planned home births can lead to emergency transports and delayed delivery of emergency care. The perinatal mortality rate was reported to be more than 8 times higher when transport from home to an obstetric unit was required.

While the primary motivation for planned home birth is increased patient satisfaction, the authors found this motivation undermined by a high rate of necessary emergency transport, as well as reported inability of the patient to cope with pain, anxiety about losing the baby during transport, and dissatisfaction with caregivers. By creating home-birth-like environments with appropriate staffing in a hospital setting, physicians can improve and ensure patient satisfaction.

In analyzing cost effectiveness, Dr. Chervenak and co-authors refer to a comprehensive Dutch study that calculates a threefold increase of costs that include patient transport and midwife and obstetrician services. Cost analysis must also include professional liability, transport system maintenance, hospital admission, lifetime costs of supporting neurologically disabled children, and more.

Finally, the team examined the relationship between planned home birth and women's rights. It argues that medical professionals should not allow unconstrained rights of pregnant women to control the birth location. To do so would be unethical.

Analytical results of these four claims enabled the authors to provide practical answers to obstetricians' questions regarding their professional responsibility for planned home birth, including addressing the root cause of planned home birth recrudescence, responding to a patient who asks about or requests planned home birth, receiving a patient on emergency transport from planned home birth, and whether to participate in or refer to planned home birth clinical trials.

Professional associations of obstetricians also have a responsibility to promote patient safety, reconsider their statements on planned home birth, and align them with professional responsibility.

"Advocacy of planned home birth is a compelling example of what happens when ideology replaces professionally disciplined clinical judgment and policy," Dr. Chervenak concludes. "We urge obstetricians, other concerned physicians, midwives and other obstetric providers, and their professional associations to eschew rights-based reductionism in the ethics of planned home birth and replace rights-based reductionism with an ethics based professional responsibility."

NOTES FOR EDITORS

"Planned Home Birth: The Professional Responsibility Response" by Frank A. Chervenak, MD; Laurence B. McCullough, PhD; Robert L. Brent, MD, PhD, DSc (Hon); Malcolm I. Levene, MD, Birgit Arabin, MD, American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Volume 208, Issue 1 (January 2012), published by Elsevier. Full text of the article is available to credentialed journalists upon request. Contact Francesca Costanzo at 215-239-3249 or [email protected] to obtain a copy. Journalists wishing to schedule interviews with the authors should contact Takla Boujaoude, NY Presbyterian Hospital Public Affairs Office, at 212-821-0560 or [email protected].

AUTHORS

Frank A. Chervenak, MD, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY, USA

Laurence B McCullough, PhD, Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

Robert L. Brent, MD, PhD, DSc (Hon), Thomas Jefferson University, Alfred I. DuPont Hospital for Children, Wilmington, DE, and Adjunct Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY, USA

Malcolm I. Levene, MD, FRCP, FRCPH, F Med Sc, Division of Pediatrics & Child Health, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds, United Kingdom

Birgit Arabin, MD, Center for Mother and Child, Philipps University, Marburg, Germany, and Clara Angela Foundation, Berlin, Germany

ABOUT THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY

The American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology (www.AJOG.org), known as "The Gray Journal," presents coverage of the entire spectrum of the field, from the newest diagnostic procedures to leading-edge research. The Journal provides comprehensive coverage of the specialty, including maternal-fetal medicine, reproductive endocrinology/infertility, and gynecologic oncology. It also publishes the annual meeting papers of several of its 7 sponsoring societies, including the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons. The American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology's 2011 Impact Factor is 3.468. The journal now ranks first in Eigen factor score, and continues to be first in total citations and the number 8 journal in the Obstetrics & Gynecology category according to the 2011 Journal Citation Reports, published by Thomson Reuters. The Journal's standard of excellence and continued success can be attributed to the strong leadership of Editors-in-Chief Thomas J. Garite, MD, and Moon H. Kim, MD, and their outstanding nationally and internationally recognized editorial board and reviewers. The journal has also been recognized as one of the 100 most influential journals in Biology & Medicine over the last 100 years, as determined by the BioMedical & Life Sciences Division of the Special Libraries Association (2009).

ABOUT ELSEVIER

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet (www.thelancet.com) and Cell (www.cell.com), and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect (www.sciencedirect.com), Scopus (www.scopus.com), Reaxys (www.reaxys.com), ClinicalKey (www.clinicalkey.com) and Mosby's Nursing Suite (www.confidenceconnected.com), which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite (www.scival.com) and MEDai's Pinpoint Review (www.medai.com), which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively. A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier (www.elsevier.com) employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC (www.reedelsevier.com), a world-leading publisher and information provider, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, located in New York City, is one of the leading academic medical centers in the world, comprising the teaching hospital NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medical College, the medical school of Cornell University. NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell provides state-of-the-art inpatient, ambulatory and preventive care in all areas of medicine, and is committed to excellence in patient care, education, research and community service. Weill Cornell physician-scientists have been responsible for many medical advances -- including the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer; the synthesis of penicillin; the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S.; the first clinical trial for gene therapy for Parkinson's disease; the first indication of bone marrow's critical role in tumor growth; and, most recently, the world's first successful use of deep brain stimulation to treat a minimally conscious brain-injured patient. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital also comprises NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Westchester Division and NewYork-Presbyterian/The Allen Hospital. NewYork-Presbyterian is the #1 hospital in the New York metropolitan area and is consistently ranked among the best academic medical institutions in the nation, according to U.S.News & World Report. Weill Cornell Medical College is the first U.S. medical college to offer a medical degree overseas and maintains a strong global presence in Austria, Brazil, Haiti, Tanzania, Turkey and Qatar.