School Exhibit

This barrage of anti-midwife articles and propaganda continues today despite the lack of any studies or statistics to prove claims that physicians guarantee the safest outcomes or healthier babies or mothers.

What do the Statistics Show?

Every valid study to date has shown that midwife-attended birth is at least as safe as physician-attended birth. Additionally, those who have a midwife-attended birth can expect to have fewer interventions of all kinds. In the early 1970′s only 0.5% of all births were attended by midwives, but in 1980 this grew to 2.1% and in 1990 to 3.9%*. Infant mortality, IM, is one criteria for assessing safety of births. The most general use of the term includes infant deaths from birth to the first birthday. 1990 statistics from the Center for Disease Control show that Direct Entry Midwives had the lowest IM, half that of M.D.’s.

Click on this link to see the stats chart on my website:

http://www.midwives.net/hsh/your_best_bet.html

* Undoubtedly the number of births attended by midwives of all kinds is higher.
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