Planned Home vs Hospital Birth: A Meta-Analysis Gone Wrong

The highly charged debate over the safety of home birth was inflamed by the publication of a meta-analysis by Joseph R. Wax and coworkers, which concluded that "less medical intervention during planned home birth is associated with a tripling of the neonatal mortality rate." The statistical analysis upon which this conclusion was based was deeply flawed, containing many numerical errors, improper inclusion and exclusion of studies, mischaracterization of cited works, and logical impossibilities. In addition, the software tool used for nearly two thirds of the meta-analysis calculations contains serious errors that can dramatically underestimate confidence intervals (CIs), and this resulted in at least 1 spuriously statistically significant result. Despite the publication of statements and commentaries querying the reliability of the findings, this faulty study now forms the evidentiary basis for an American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Committee Opinion, meaning that its results are being presented to expectant parents as the state-of-the-art in home birth safety research.