5th Anniversary of the CPM2000 Study’s Publication in the British Medical Journal
(June 18, 2005 - June 18, 2010)

June 18th, 2010 is the 5th anniversary of the publication of the CPM2000 study in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). We thought this a perfect opportunity to update you on the study and to once again thank the more than 400 Certified Professional Midwives and (CPMs) and more than 7,000 mothers who made the study possible. As well we wish to thank in particular Pam Maurath for endless wisdom and support and for helping arrange for core funding for the study through The Benjamin Spencer Fund and to thank the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery for additional funding to finish the study.

Continued High Level of Web Access
We were thrilled when we found out in March 2006 that the article had made the BMJ Top Ten Hit parade for 2005 – the third most popular in the BMJ in the year 2005 based on web access in first week after publication.

Now we are astounded by the fact that five years after publication the article continues to be accessed every month by more than 1,200 individuals and downloaded 150 to 300 times as a PDF. That’s the equivalent of someone accessing the article once every 30 minutes and someone downloading it once every 3 hours, 24/7. See the attached table of access by month over the last 5 years provided by the BMJ.

Article Available in Other Languages
The article has been translated into at least four other languages. PDFs of the article are now available for free on the BMJ website in French, Spanish, German and in a larger font for aging midwives. (http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7505/1416). With a little luck it should soon be available there in Hungarian and Hebrew!

Supplementary Articles: Q & A’s, and More on Neonatal Mortality and Prematurity
We have also produced two supplementary articles in journal format which we wrote in response to questions about the article. The first is in a Q&A format to answer the most commonly asked questions about the study. The second takes a closer look at perinatal mortality and comparisons of the CPM2000 stats to US national birth statistics and suggests that mortality is similar but prematurity is less than half as common among women cared for by CPMs than among the general U.S. public. Both reports are available for free at our website (http://understandingbirthbetter.com).

Recent Home Birth Studies Provide Further Evidence Of Home Birth Safety
The success of the study in terms of access demonstrates just how important research is to midwifery and to homebirth. Providing evidence for mothers and midwives alike about the safety, rates of interventions and transfers to hospital in planned home birth, it has also informed state legislators and the obstetrical community about the care direct-entry midwives in North America provide. While the lobby against CPMs in Washington recently was unfortunate, it is our perception that many players besides the Senators had their minds opened when we presented data to them this past year.

Recent large high-quality studies of home birth in Canada 1 2 and the Netherlands 3 dovetail with the CPM2000 study to extend weight of evidence supporting the safety of planned homebirth for low risk women where home birth midwives are an integral, accepted and funded part of the health care system. The Canadian research provides direct comparisons of home and hospital birth safety. While the BMJ article remains the largest prospective home birth study to date, the retrospective Dutch study is the largest study on home birth ever accomplished. It may be of interest to note that these studies reflect the practise of direct entry midwives. Nurse midwifery does not exist in Canada and the Netherlands.

We continue to be active in advising home birth researchers or reviewing home birth articles and our response to a recent Australian home birth article has just been published in Medical Journal of Australia. http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/192_12_210610/letters_210610_fm-7.html.

Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives: large prospective study in North America,
British Medical Journal June 18, 2005 330: 1416

Source: British Medical Journal