A well planned home delivery is one of the birthing options available to women in the U.K/USA and the very developed part of the world with well organized health structure and maternity services. This option is usually given to women with previous successful uncomplicated deliveries in whom their current pregnancy is not associated with any obvious risk factor or complications. In a study conducted in Australia in over 300 women, who had planned home delivery, the outcome for the mother and baby was favorable. The woman selected for the study did not have any significant risk of complications. This planned home birth has to be under the supervision of a well trained and experienced midwife with a back up emergency ambulance and flying squad attached to cope with an emergency.
An unplanned home birth could be dangerous as catastrophic even in developed countries. Home birth whether planned or not, may not yet be an option for women in many underdeveloped countries of the world. This is because of the poor health infrastructure and the poor availability of qualified health personnel such as midwives to conduct planned home birth.
Many health institutions in underdeveloped countries are not staffed with enough midwives to even have some outside health centers conducting home birthing. In the underdeveloped countries of the world, unplanned home birthing is quite common. These unplanned home deliveries are not conducted by trained midwives and the maternal and perinatal morbidities and mortalities are quite enormous. In some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, over 40% of deliveries occur at home unsupervised and this region parades some of the worst maternal and newborn health indices where the risk of dying in labour/delivery is as high as 1 in 8 women. Women in this region of the world should be encouraged to have hospital deliveries under the supervision of trained health personnel.
