Home and hospital: a comparison of the experiences of mothers having home and hospital confinements.

A survey of women delivered in 24 different districts compared the patients' reports of their experiences of delivery in hospital with delivery at home.Among the findings were that labour lasted a significantly shorter time at home, significantly fewer women were left alone at home, and significantly fewer had episiotomies at home.Husbands played much more of a role at home and 76 per cent were present at the birth compared with 30 per cent in hospital.Of the mothers at home 57 per cent held their baby "as long as they wanted" compared with 29 per cent in hospital.These and other factors suggest that more needs to be done to improve the qualitative aspects of delivery in hospital and especially to promote warmer human relationships within the patient's family.