Where Do You Feel Safest? Demographic Factors and Place of Birth.
Mickey Sperlich, Cynthia Gabriel, Julia Seng
PMID 27623132WHAT IT FOUND
Black and white women felt safest giving birth outside hospital at similar rates.
Older age, low income, and master's degree predicted endorsing feeling safest in out-of-hospital settings.
Key findings
01Black women reported feeling safest giving birth out-of-hospital at 11.5% and white women at 13.1%, and the difference was not statistically significant.
02Eighty of 634 women said they felt safest giving birth outside a hospital: 51 chose birth center, 28 chose home, and one chose other.
03Having household income less than $15,000, being older than 30 years, and having a master's degree independently predicted feeling safest giving birth outside hospital.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The question was hypothetical and asked at 35 weeks, so answers may not reflect real birth choices. All participants planned hospital births, and the study did not measure what they knew about out-of-hospital options. The sample was nulliparous women from Michigan, so results may not apply to women who have given birth before or to other regions. The hospitals studied all had large midwifery practices, so preferences may differ at hospitals without midwifery services. Only 80 women endorsed feeling safest outside hospital, which limits multivariate modelling. The study did not measure access, discrimination, prior negative experiences, or why actual out-of-hospital births are disproportionately white.
Declared interests
The supplied text reports that the data were collected in a project identified as NIH NR008767 and that participants were paid $20 for each research interview. It does not report author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that black women are less interested in out-of-hospital birth. The study found similar rates of feeling safest outside hospital for black and white women, and it did not measure why actual out-of-hospital births are disproportionately white.