How many home births in your area?

Born has always had an active interest in birthing issues and supporting parents to exercise their choice - we've two children, one born at home and the other in hospital.  So we were fascinated by a recent US study entitled ‘Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care’ that announced that the percentage of births occurring at home in the US increased by 20% between 2004 and 2008.


They put this increase down to the risk profile for home births decreasing, with substantial drops in the percentage of infants born at home who are preterm or low birth weight, and born to teen and unmarried mothers.

The increase in home births may be related to the popularity of movies like 2008's "The Business of Being Born," executive produced by Ricki Lake actress, or TV shows such as  "A Baby Story" that have followed women as they give birth at home in bed or in a bathtub.  But the relationship may not be a simple one.  The 2004-2008 increase actually began before many of the articles and movies about home births became popular, the authors noted

Fantastic news I thought, until I continued reading and saw that despite the 20% increase home births still only account for less than 1% of births each year.

So how does that compare to the UK?

The average in the UK (2009) was 2.6%, but there’s a huge difference in the percentage of home births depending upon where you live – for instance in Mid Wales over 7% of births occur at home, while in Merseyside the figure is 1.7%.  A couple of notable rates are:

Bristol 4%

London 2.1%

Islington 2.5%

Hackney 2.6%

Cornwall 6.3%

Somerset 4%

If you’re interested in the percentage of home births click through to www.birthchoiceuk.com