While the debate will always continue about the safety of homebirth vs hospital birth, a recent meta analysis of 14 studies which included 500,000 women concluded that in LOW RISK women, home birth did not pose a higher risk for either moms or babies than LOW RISK women in a hospital setting. The Authors concluded:
Planned home birth is a reasonable option that should be available to childbearing women as part of the maternity care system, and to achieve optimal outcomes, home birth practitioners should be integrated into the maternity care system.
We still have a long way to go in the United States in offering options to childbearing women– but hopefully this is a step in the right direction! Read more here: https://www.lamaze.org/Connecting-the-Dots/Post/research-review-systematic-review-finds-no-increase-in-adverse-outcomes-with-planned-home-birth-1