SynthesisPloS one2016
Costing Alternative Birth Settings for Women at Low Risk of Complications: A Systematic Review.
Synthesis in PloS one, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 47 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Cost and Cost-Effectiveness of Childbirth Settings: A Systematic Review.Applied health economics and health policy · 2025Pooled it
- Outcomes by birth setting and caregiver for low risk women in Indonesia: a systematic literature review.Reproductive health · 2019Pooled it
- Differences in women's experiences of labour according to type of fetal monitoring: a quantitative analysis of an Australian national survey.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Article
- Cost minimisation analyses of birth care in low-risk women in Norway: a comparison between planned home birth and birth in a standard obstetric unit.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Increasing the number of midwives is necessary but not sufficient: using global data to support the case for investment in both midwife availability and the enabling work environment in low- and middle-income countries.Human resources for health · 2024Article
- Planned hospital birth compared with planned home birth for pregnant women at low risk of complications.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2023Review
- Cost analysis of planned out-of-hospital births in Italy.Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis · 2022Article
- Are perinatal quality collaboratives collaborating enough? How including all birth settings can drive needed improvement in the United States maternity care system.Birth (Berkeley, Calif.) · 2022Article
- Identification and assessment of a comprehensive set of structural factors associated with hospital costs in Switzerland.PloS one · 2022Article
- The Cost of Home Birth in the United States.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Modelling the cost of place of birth: a pathway analysis.BMC health services research · 2021Article
- The opportunity costs of birth in Australia: Hospital resource savings for a post-COVID-19 era.Birth (Berkeley, Calif.) · 2021Article
- Is it Time to Ask Whether Facility Based Birth is Safe for Low Risk Women and Their Babies?EClinicalMedicine · 2019Article
- Cost-effectiveness of continuity of midwifery care for women with complex pregnancy: a structured review of the literature.Health economics review · 2018Review
- The ResQu Index: A new instrument to appraise the quality of research on birth place.PloS one · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThere is demand from women for alternatives to giving birth in a standard hospital setting however access to these services is limited. This systematic review examines the literature relating to the economic evaluations of birth setting for women at low risk of complications.
methodsSearches of the literature to identify economic evaluations of different birth settings of the following electronic databases: MEDLINE, CINAHL, EconLit, Business Source Complete and Maternity and Infant care. Relevant English language publications were chosen using keywords and MeSH terms between 1995 and 2015. Inclusion criteria included studies focussing on the comparison of birth setting. Data were extracted with respect to study design, perspective, PICO principles, and resource use and cost data.
resultsEleven studies were included from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, the USA, and the UK. Four studies compared costs between homebirth and the hospital setting and the remaining seven focussed on the cost of birth centre care and the hospital setting. Six studies used a cost-effectiveness analysis and the remaining five studies used cost analysis and cost comparison methods. Eight of the 11 studies found a cost saving in the alternative settings. Two found no difference in the cost of the alternative settings and one found an increase in birth centre care.
conclusionsThere are few studies that compare the cost of birth setting. The variation in the results may be attributable to the cost data collection processes, difference in health systems and differences in which costs were included. A better understanding of the cost of birth setting is needed to inform policy makers and service providers.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.