Ágnes Geréb, the Hungarian home birth midwife, was arrested in October 5th, 2010 after an ambulance, and then the police, were called to a precipitous birth at Sunlight Birth House in Budapest, Hungary. Dr. Geréb is an obstetrician with more than 10 years of hospital experience, and more than 20 years of out-of-hospital experience. In her career, she has attended more than 3000 births. Of these 3000 births, there were fatalities in 3 cases, which gives her an infant mortality rate of 1 in 1000.

Home birth with a midwife is as safe as hospital birth only if 3 conditions are met: 1. if home birth is well regulated, so it is extremely well defined who falls into a high risk vs low risk category and under what circumstances hospital transfers have to be made 2, if the midwife is well trained to recognize boundaries between normal and pathological, 3. if transfer conditions between home and hospital are good, which would include features like distance to transfer, cooperation of the hospital staff, or perhaps even access for the midwife to hospital resources to continue the woman’s care...

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