Home births climbed during pandemic and are at highest level in decades, study says

U.S. home births are surging in popularity as they climbed to their highest level in decades in 2021, according to a new study.

The study, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that home births increased by 12% from 2020 to 2021, bringing them to their highest level since at least 1990. The uptick followed a 19% increase in home births across the country from 2019 to 2020.

Despite the growing number of home births, only a fraction, 1.4%, of total newborns were delivered at home in 2021, according to the study.

Last year’s increases were the highest for Black women, followed by Hispanic women and white women, the study revealed. Additionally, at-home deliveries increased in 30 states, including West Virginia, which experienced an above-average 49% jump.

Home births have been steadily climbing over the decades, with an average annual increase of 2% from 1990 to 2019, before shooting up to double digits during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the study said.

Reasons for the upward trend are not known, the Associated Press reported, but the increases coincided with a period of high COVID-19 rates of transmission and low or no supplies of vaccine.

Lack of health insurance and long distances from hospitals may have also been factors, according to the AP.

Proponents tout several benefits to giving birth at home, according to The New York Times.

“You’re in the comfort of your own home, there’s little to no medical intervention and, in most cases, the mother — not her physician, or hospital staff — is in control,” advocates say.

Some health care professionals have expressed concerns about home births in the past, and the authors of a 2021 article in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology wrote, “It is an immutable truth that planned home births in the United States result in avoidable risks of increased adverse neonatal outcomes.”

In an earlier study published in the same journal, authors concluded that the majority of women who deliver their children at home have at least one risk factor associated with childbirth.

A 2022 study in the Journal of Global Pediatric Health found that most countries in the European Union have rates of home births comparable to the U.S., with the Netherlands being the only outlier with 16% of all births delivered at home. Dutch deliveries classified as low-risk are attended only by midwives.

In the U.S., most births occurred in the home up until the 20th century, but an increase in physicians trained in midwifery, the invention of anesthesia and forceps, and mass urbanization, in addition to myriad other factors, all contributed to the decline of at-home births, according to the Hektoen International Journal.

This story was originally published November 17, 2022 at 6:23 PM with the headline "Home births climbed during pandemic and are at highest level in decades, study says."