In a television documentary to be screened on Sunday evening, Dutch gynecologists say births should only take place in specialised hospitals.

They partly blame the relatively high number of infant fatalities in the Netherlands on the practice of home births. They say midwives are reluctant to intervene when women in labour get into difficulty and therefore intervention comes too late. Midwives vehemently dispute this claim. Around 30 percent of all babies are delivered at home by midwives. If there are complications the women are rushed to hospital.

The gynecologists say thirty hospitals evenly distributed throughout the country should provide specialist pre and post natal care. A gynecologist and anaesthetist should be on duty at all time. At the moment there are 100 hospitals in the Netherlands where women can give birth. Gynecologists and anaethetists are only present during office hours, which means valuable time is lost when they have to be called up.

The number of babies in the Netherlands that die just before or just after birth is relatively high compared to other Western countries. A steering group is due to give its recommendations at the end of the year to reduce the infant mortality figures.

Photo: Baby in incubator - Flickr/inferis