[Planned non-hospital births in industrialized countries: bureaucratic dream vs. professional responsibility]

This article addresses in how far planned non-hospital births should be an alternative to planned hospital births. Advocates of planned non-hospital deliveries have emphasised patient safety, patient satisfaction, cost effectiveness, and respect for women's rights. We provide a critical evaluation of each of these claims and have doubts that the information available for the pregnant women and the public is in accord with professional responsibility. We understand that the increasing rates of interventions and operative deliveries in hospital births demand an answer, but we doubt that planned home birth is the appropriate professional solution. Complications during non-hospital births inevitably demand a transport of mother and child to a perinatal centre. The time delay by itself is an unnecessary risk for both and this cannot be abolished by bureaucratic quality criteria as introduced for non-hospital births in Germany. Evidence-based studies have shown that modern knowledge of the course of delivery including ultrasound as well as intensive care during the delivery all reduce the rate of operative deliveries. Unfortunately, this is not well-known and only rarely considered during any delivery. All these facts, however, are the best arguments to find a cooperative model within perinatal centres to combine the art of midwifery with modern science, reduction of pain and perinatal care of the pregnant women before, during and after birth. We therefore call on obstetricians, midwifes and health-care providers as well as health politicians to carefully analyse the studies from Western countries showing increasing risks if the model of intention-to-treat is considered and accoordingly not to support planned non-hospital births nor to include these models into prospective trials. Alternatively, we recommend the introduction of a home-like climate within hospitals and perinatal centres, to avoid unnecessary invasive measures and to really care for the pregnant mother before, during and after delivery within a cooperative model without the lack of patient safety for both mother and child in case of impending or acute emergencies.