Abstract
There is general agreement that there are certain complications of pregnancy and labour which are likely to prove dangerous to mother and child unless a full range of medical care facilities are at hand. Equally, it is agreed that most pregnancies and deliveries run a perfectly normal course and could, considered in retrospect, have been delivered safely at home. Given this situation, both parents and professionals are looking for statistical evidence to help make decisions about the place of birth. The evidence routinely available at present is insufficiently precise and difficult to interpret, which makes both individual and planning decisions difficult and open to criticism. This chapter will consider the statistics available for domiciliary and consultant deliveries and what deductions can legitimately be drawn from them.
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Reference
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© 1984 The Royal Society of Medicine
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Alberman, E. (1984). Statistical Comparison of Home and Hospital Confinements. In: Zander, L., Chamberlain, G. (eds) Pregnancy Care for the 1980s. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17389-1_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17389-1_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-33346-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-17389-1
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