The number of home births in the city has fallen over the last five years.

Figures from the Royal Sussex County Hospital show that there have been just 131 planned home births in the city for the year up to September this year.

If the home birth rate was maintained throughout the rest of the year, this would represent an almost 15% drop on the 202 planned births in the whole of 2006.

While the number of planned home births declines, the number of unplanned home births is on the rise with 34 in the first nine months of this year compared with 23 for the whole of 2006.

A recent report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists suggested that as many as a third of all women should give birth “without a doctor going anywhere near them”.

The report states that only women most at risk of suffering complications such as those expecting twins or triplets, the obese, diabetics or mothers in their 40s, should have to give birth in hospital.

Home births cost the NHS around £630 each compared to £1,600 for a hospital birth.

Louise Silverton, deputy general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, said: “I have no doubt that this fall is related to cost-cutting within the NHS which sees resources pulled out of the community and into the hospitals, all of which is going against this government’s commitment to bring services closer to home.

Teacher Kelly Davis, 28, from Hove, said: “Three of the seven couples in our anti-natal classes live in one-bedroom homes so where can you have a baby?”

A Brighton and Sussex University Hospital Trust spokeswoman said the trust’s senior staff including the head of midwifery carry out home births and make sure that option is available to patients.

For more on this story see today's Argus.

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