Home Birth Legislation: Australia

Let us be completely frank about this. Not everyone is going to choose a homebirth. But, in every country in the world bar this one, it can still continue. In the Netherlands, something like a quarter of all births are done at home. Look at the history of midwifery. You can go right back through five centuries. There was a time when homebirth was safer than being in hospital. Back in the 1750s, when they opened the doors of hospitals to mums of lower socioeconomic background—and the other side of the chamber should be listening to this all of a sudden—it was actually more dangerous to go to hospital for a birth because of the lack of antiseptic measures. There was a time, in 1854, in Vienna when 13 per cent of mums died in hospital childbirth compared to two per cent with homebirthing.

via Hoyden About Town