Distinction Between Births in Cares Centers and Hospitals (Essay Sample)

An outcome of birth centers vs. hospital births.
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Introduction
Birth care centers are centres where a pregnant mother can deliver the baby with the help of a midwife while the hospitals are centers where the mother can produce with the assistance of nurses and doctors. Birth care centers can be a medical institution, or one can deliver at home with the aid of a midwife. Sterilization in birth care centers is always by boiling medical and surgical equipment while in hospitals they use new equipment for every mother. The mortality rate at birth care centers is high while it is reduced at hospitals (Alliman, CNM, DNP, & Phillippi, 2016). Pregnant mothers are likely to get more assistance when they deliver in hospitals than when they deliver in birth care centres. This is because in birth care centers the id wife only concentrates on performing her job and not the survival of mother and infant.
Birth care centers
Birth care centers are where the mother of the unborn child engages a midwife who helps her deliver at home. It was used long ago, and it is still used when the hospital is far away and cannot be easily accessed by the mother. Birth care centres are more comfortable since the mother will not have to sleep a full hospital bed but will sleep in their homes while in hospitals the mothers are even forced to sleep many in one bed, and they are less hospital-like since the mother delivers at home. Birth care centres can be cost effective for riskless pregnancies and deliveries and only advisable when the middle woman is sure that the mother and the infant will not get any complications (O’Hara, Frazier, Starbridge, McKay, Mohr, & Shalat, 2013). From 1970, there has been an increase in birth care centers since it is affordable for the low-income families. Percentage of births however in the birth care centers has declined since the advancement of technology and the introduction of more hospitals. Birth care centres were geared to low risk patients who required fewer obstetric interventions. The goal of these centers was to provide safe vaginal delivery for mother and the infant and to reduce the rate of mortality for both the mother and child. The birth care center is a safe alternative to hospital delivery since the middle woman is trained to help mothers deliver and they observe sanitation of equipment as hospitals do.
A research was conducted in birth centers, and it was noted that women required less interventions in labour and took only one hour or less in labour. Postpartum stays were even shorter where the mother would stay for lesser time at the hospital after delivery to recover. However, the study found no significant difference in episiotomy rate, birth weight, and infant Apgar score as compared to when the infants were delivered in hospitals. There was a high rate of postnatal death and severe morbidity in the probability of mortality after a mother gives birth in a birth care, which was greater than 0.03 or 3 percent. When findings were adjusted for maternal age and gestation, only postnatal mortality of primiparas was significantly elevated by a 95 percent confidence interval. Births in birth care centers amounted to 19,706, which decreased to 16,710 and later to 11,282. It was noted that postnatal death and ante partum related severe morbidity was increased among home births.
Hospital Births
After the introduction of hospital births, the mother was given a chance to give birth in a well-equipped hospital, which reduced the mortality rate of both mother and infant, over a significant range. Those who took long in labour would now be assured of survival and various illnesses decreased by a significant margin (Walsh, RM, RGN, DPSM, & Downe, 2004). Sterilization of hospital and medical equipment became easier with the advancement of technology, which significantly reduced various infections like HIV/AIDS. Those who took long in labour would now opt for caesarean sections, which greatly reduced the death of mothers and infants. The only disadvantage is that some of the hospitals would be crowded, and parents would be forced to share beds. Some would even stay long in hospitals after giving birth to recover despite them being in good condition.
Characteristics
When comparing the birth care centers and hospital births, there were 14,326 births and 17,848 births respectively. Mothers aged 25 to 29.9 had a higher rate with 8,570, which is 59.9 percent reporting in birth care centers and 10,627, which is 59.6 percent reporting in hospitals to deliver. Mothers aged below 20 years had a lower rate with 1,670, which is 11.7 percent reporting in birth care centres and those above 35 years had a lower rate with 1,530, which is 8.6 percent reporting in hospitals. The white race had a higher rate in both birth care centers and hospitals with 10,633 births in birth care centers, which is 77.6 percent, and 11,307 births in hospitals, which is 67 percent. The one with the lowest rate of delivery was others with 270 births in birth care centers, which is 2 percent, and 272 births in hospitals, which is 1.6 percent. The highest parity rate was 1 to 2 with 5,821 births in birth care centers, which is 40.7 percent, and 6,959 births in hospitals, which is 39 percent. 8,139 mothers who delivered in birth care centers had a normal prepregnancy, which amounted to 58.2 percent while 8,256 mothers who delivered in hospitals had a normal prepregnancy, which amounted to 48.1 percent (Benatar, Garrett, Howell, & Palmer, n.d.). The average pregnancy weight was between 18.5 kgs to 24.9 kgs. However, there are those mothers who were obese at greater than 35 when delivering. 538 of these parents gave in birth care centers, which amounted to 3.9 percent while the 1,047 of the poor mothers who had less than 18.5 kgs delivered in hospitals, which amounted to 6.1 percent. 163 mothers gave in birth care centers, which amounted to 1.1 percent while 3,101 provided in hospitals, which amounted to 17.4 percent. These parents produced when their pregnancy was less than 37 weeks. At between 37 to 40 weeks, 12,970 mothers delivered in birth care centers, which are 90.5% while 12,290 parents were given in hospitals, which are 68.9%. Lastly, there are those who delivered when the pregnancy was greater than 41 weeks. 1,193 of these mothers gave in birth care centers while 2,457 provided in hospitals.
Infants were found to have different illnesses that include diabetes, chronic hypertension, pre-eclampsia or eclampsia, fetal malpresentation et cetera. Various types of labour were noted: argument, induced, and spontaneous. 4,563 mothers had augmented births in birth care centers while 3,215 had argument births in hospitals. 1,253 parents had induced labours in birth care centres while 8,876 mothers had induced labours in hospitals. Lastly, 8,510 mothers had spontaneous labour in birth care centres while 5,817 mothers had spo...