Home birth midwives report that interest in giving birth at home has increased during the corona pandemic - in some places doubled.

And there is a trend that worries: That women give birth without professional help.

Ulla Waldenström, who is a midwife and professor emeritus at Karolinska Institutet, believes that women and children are at risk of dying if the trend continues. 

- On some pages in social media, women are encouraged to give birth without the assistance of a midwife and it is presented as a worse alternative than being with a support person without medical skills, she says.

- There is, in a few groups, a great deal of skepticism towards healthcare and this has been accentuated by the corona crisis.

"Are there movements internationally"

The Swedish Midwifery Association is also concerned about the trend.

- It's very unfortunate.

There are some movements internationally where midwives are included in the medical care that can disrupt childbirth.

There may be examples of this, but then we will work with it and develop care with more safe alternatives, says chairman Eva Nordlund.

Want to see home birth as a safe alternative

Research on home birth shows that it does not involve an increased risk if the woman is healthy, rebirth and has had a previously normal pregnancy, according to Ulla Waldenström.

For first-time mothers, on the other hand, there has been an increase in risk.

However, few choose to give birth at home, compared to in hospitals.

In Sweden, the proportion of home births is about one per 1,000 births, according to Waldenström.

But since women have the right to choose to give birth at home, she believes that society also has a duty to assist by making home birth as safe an alternative as possible.

"Risks becoming a business in secret"

Since the midwife must be paid out of her own pocket for home birth, it has also become a class issue, says Ulla Waldenström.

For those who cannot afford it, home birth without medical skills will be the only option.

- When the maternity care does not show up and midwives who help in the home are not viewed with kind eyes, then there is a risk of it becoming a business in secret.

And then both women and children can suffer.