The Royal College of Midwives has taken a pot at the use of flawed evidence used to discourage women from giving birth at home.
 
Cathy Warwick, the General Secretary of the college, was particularly angry about a US study whose treatment of the data was criticised last month on this website, and of The Lancet’s uncritical backing for it.  The study based its conclusions on a minority of cases while ignoring the majority that showed no increased risk of homebirth.
 
Her remarks are reported in today’s Guardian and Daily Mail. Read Straight Statistics’ original criticism here.
 
The Lancet’s editorial, she said, “pumped the hype about the dangers of homebirth, and made sweeping and misogynistic statements such as “Women do not have the right to put their baby at risk.” The exaggeration of risk in childbirth “highlights the way women can be persuaded and frightened into making choices they don’t want”.
 
In this field, exaggeration cuts both ways – witness the WHO study, also reported here and here, that exaggerated the risks of Caesarean sections.  In obstetrics and gynaecology, ideology-loaded evidence is so commonplace that it pays to be constantly alert to it.