De groei van de ziekenhuisbevalling. Nederland en het buitenland

Samenvatting

The Growth of Hospital Delivery. The Netherlands Compared to Other Countries. In European countries and in the US, 95+% of babies are born in hospitals; in contrast, in the Netherlands, babies born at home account for 33% of all deliveries. Analysis of material published in Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde between 1965-1980 and other secondary sources, reveals that hospital deliveries in the Netherlands increased from 22.1% of all deliveries in 1952 to 63.4% in 1985, with a respective decrease in home deliveries. The development of obstetric science and practice is traced cross-nationally, and changes in family life and delivery place are found to be related. The relatively slow increase of hospital deliveries in the Netherlands is attributed to: (1) the small geographic area of the Netherlands; (2) the specific character of Dutch obstetrics; (3) the position of Dutch midwives and their relationship to gynecologists; (4) changes in the place of these professional groups in international obstetrics; and (5) the traditional character of the Dutch family. Z. Dubiel