Friday, January 29, 2010

Mother cut 'like meat' by midwife during home birth

I usually steer clear of stories related to home birth; as far as I'm concerned, it's simply another birth method that happens to be on the opposite end of the choice spectrum to my own (planned surgery), and as long as a woman is fully informed of the risks and has not been medically advised against it for the safety of her unborn child (e.g. the pregnancy is deemed high risk), then I respect her choice.

I just had to blog about the story that appeared on the BBC News website this week though, because the outcome for mother and child were so devastating. You can read it here.

High risk, high price - physically and financially
What stands out for me is the fact that the independent midwife attending the home birth had no insurance, and it reminded me of a programme I heard on Radio 4's Woman's Hour once (I think it was last year...), which discussed how independent midwives find it difficult to arrange insurance for home birth deliveries because insurance providers consider the event too high risk.

The irony for me is that women choosing cesarean delivery on maternal request are often accused of wasting tax-payers' money, and yet when the cost of litigation and subsequent surgery for babies and mothers following planned vaginal delivery morbidity (whether the birth is in hospital or at home), the truth about which delivery plan costs the NHS more money is different to what many people might think.

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