Table 1.

Mortality among babies delivered to “low risk” women, according to present study and other studies

Study	Type of study	Study population
		No of deaths/study population	Mortality per 1000 live births (95% confidence interval)
NHS surveillance and postal survey England and Wales, 1994-6 (present study)	All babies delivered in water	5/4 030	1.2 (0.4 to 2.9)
Scotland, 199018	Stillbirths and neonatal deaths in normal primiparous women*	29/10 266	2.8 (1.9 to 4.1)
North West Thames, 1992-3 (unpublished data)	Stillbirths and first week deaths in standard primiparous women with a spontaneous, normal vaginal delivery**	14/10 307	1.4 (0.7 to 2.3)
Northern region, 1981-9422	Women booked and delivered at home; perinatal deaths	3/1 733	1.7 (0.4 to 5.1)
North Staffordshire Maternity Hospital17	Extremely low risk (4% of 32 424 deliveries); perinatal death	1/1 312	0.8 (0.2 to 4.2)
GP managed home births23	1 stillbirth, no perinatal deaths	1/217	4.6 (0.1 to 25)

^*Based on a subsample (16.1% of all maternities) of normal primiparous women (defined as women with no previous registrable pregnancy, a singleton birth, labour not induced, aged 16-35, delivery after 36 completed weeks, no antenatal admission or admitted for 24 hours or less, and no breech presentation). 

^**Unpublished data for 15 maternity units in North West Thames in 1992 and 1993 (94 353 births) based on a subsample of standard primiparous women (defined as white women with no previous registrable pregnancy, aged 20-34 years, height over 1.55 m, singleton delivery, cephalic presentation, >37 weeks’ gestation, delivered in the same unit as booked, no medical complications of pregnancy).²⁴ Any standard primiparous women (14 546) who did not have a spontaneous, normal vaginal delivery or had missing data about perinatal death or admission to special care were excluded, leaving a total of 10 307 births (11% of the total) for analyses.