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Another good reason to keep birth out of hospitals

There is a report in the Times newspaper today about the problems with hygiene in NHS hospitals in Britain. It appears that about one third of hospitals are unable to provide their staff with immediate access to basic hand washing equipment and this is fuelling concerns about the rising rates of MRSA infections.

Some hospitals I have visited ask everyone to rub an alcohol based cleaning gel on their hands as they enter the building and others have similar stations outside the entrances to the wards. The spread of infection is a serious problem and can be brought into the hospital, and taken home as well. It is well known that staff are the main carriers of infections (nose and mouth as well has hands) and I wonder about the risks to families when a someone who works at a hospital takes home bugs on their hands, or clothes that contain bacteria to be washed.

The general public is worried about the cleanliness of hospitals, as they should be. However, it is one issue that rarely seems to be raised in connection with childbirth. Here we have healthy women going into a dirty hospital setting to give birth. We know that many do acquire bacterial and viral infections that are hard to beat, especially if surgery has taken place. Many women will have infections following caesarean births and some of these will lead to infertility and chronic illness. Yet this is an aspect of the medicalisation of birth that is rarely discussed. Perhaps women think “it won’t happen to me” and don’t properly consider the post-natal implications of a hospital acquired infection when they are focussing on the birth itself.

Seems to me this is a powerful argument for homebirth. People don’t pick up nasty bugs in their own home and newborns will already have immunity to the bacteria found there, through the antibodies passed on by their mothers. Of course the chance of surgery being performed in the home are zero, which clearly reduces the risk, but MRSA infection in hospital is not only contracted through wounds - it can develop following skin contact.

Funny how some issues get a lot of airtime and others are overlooked. When it comes to managing risk around childbirth, keeping out of the system and leaving nature to work as intended are plain common sense. Perhaps one day the health care system will “come clean” about the hidden risk of infection and the very real possibility of going into hospital to give birth in a healthy state and coming out sick.

Posted by andrea at March 23, 2006 03:04 AM