Midwife-attended home births in the US had a mortality rate of nearly 13 deaths per 10,000 deliveries, 39% of which were linked to labor and delivery problems, while 30% were tied to birth defects and 12% to infections. The findings in the Journal of Perinatal Medicine, based on data involving 15.9 million babies born between 2008 and 2012, found a mortality rate of 6 deaths for every 10,000 hospital deliveries by a doctor and 3.5 for hospital midwife-attended deliveries, most of which were due to congenital defects.
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