For generations, both British and American mothers have assumed that the safest way to give birth is to spend many hours, if not days, in a hospital bed under the supervision of an obstetrician. Now, new guidelines are challenging these deeply held beliefs.
After completing an evidence-based review, the United Kingdom's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) concluded that healthy women with straightforward pregnancies are safer giving birth at home or in a midwife-led unit than in a hospital under the supervision of an obstetrician.1 Across the pond, eyebrows went up. The New York Timeseditorial board (and others) wondered, “Are midwives safer than doctors?”2How can homes be safer than hospitals? And what implications will the British guidelines have for the United States?
