Quick facts about the new home-birth guidelines

Home births used to be the status quo, but the availability of hospitals and the development of more hygienic ways to carry out childbirth have significantly reduced the number of home births over the years. Doctors generally do not prefer to perform home births for a number of reasons largely related to sanitation. Still, they recognize the women who do opt for home birth and have released a set of guidelines published in the academy’s journal, Pediatrics.

Image source: sheknows.com

Some of the more obvious and expected guidelines include the following:

• All medical equipment should be tested before the delivery.
• There should be at least one person at the birth who will be solely responsible for tending to the newborn infant. This person should also be trained in infant CPR.
• There should be a working phone line kept open and available for immediate use.
• There should be a plan to transfer the mother to a hospital in case of emergencies.
• The person attending to the infant should perform all the routine tests that nurses perform on a newborn baby: monitor their temperature and heart rate, keep them warm, and administer vitamin K and heel-prick test, which will be sent to an outside laboratory for processing.

Image source: guardian.co.uk

While seemingly standard, the guidelines did include one provision which raised eyebrows among physicians in the field: It is strongly recommended that only midwives who were cleared by the American Midwifery Certification Board could assist in home births because these midwives typically attend deliveries at hospitals and birthing centers.

Interestingly, it was not the fact that home births were still allowed which caused controversy but that one type of midwife should be better than another.

Image source: thedailybeast.com

As a former hospital administrator at Newman Regional Hospital in Emporia, Kansas, Terry Lambert is a strong advocate of accessible hospital services. Follow this Facebook page for more insights from his experience in the medical field.