The safety of planned home birth: some considerations from a qualitative study

Introduction: The search for safety also involves risks caused by the devices that are created to anticipate and control them. This is the case of unnecessary interventionism in hospital births in relation to planned home deliveries. Objectives: To explore the relationship between physiological delivery and obstetric interventionism, and to examine the debate on the safety of home delivery and its main repercussions. Methodology: Qualitative research. Collection of information with a questionnaire of open questions completed in writing by 45 women who gave birth at home in the province of Murcia between 2008 and 2017. For its analysis MAXQDA qualitative data analysis software was used. Results: obstetric interventionism hinders the physiological delivery process; The debate over the safety of planned home birth is polarized, causing various repercussions for those involved. Conclusions: planned home birth in low-risk women favors the development of physiological delivery, which avoids many of the unnecessary obstetric interventions associated in hospitals; Likewise, the polarized debate on the safety of childbirth at home does not provide consensual information, which has repercussions on the different positioning of the two health groups that take care of childbirth (gynecologists and midwives), and on the fact that women who decide to perform the home births are pressurized by multiple sources (health system, family members, friends ...) that come face to face with the relevant information available to them about home birth and the support of the professional who accompanies them in the birth.