Mercy in action. Philippine birth center statistics.

I studied 7,565 women admitted for labor and delivery in two free-standing charity birth centers that I established in the Philippines. The births occurred between February 8, 1996, and December 31, 2003. Midwives conducted all of the deliveries that occurred in the birth centers. The midwives were certified professional midwives (CPM) or licensed midwives (LM) from the USA, Canada and the Philippines. They supervised student midwives enrolled in the Mercy In Action College of Midwifery & Primary Health Care and dual-enrolled in the National College of Midwifery's Associate of Science in Midwifery program. These students were from all around the world. The birthing women were at higher than average risk of a poor pregnancy outcome because of demographic factors: most were poor, often malnourished and living in crowded urban slum conditions. Ninety-two percent of the women and 34% of their spouses were unemployed, and only a little over half were married. In spite of the poverty, 95% of the women had spontaneous vaginal birth; 83% had blood loss less than 500 ml; 85% of the babies required no resuscitation effort; 67% of the labors were without fetal distress or meconium staining; and 90% of the babies were of normal birth weight. Transfers to a hospital after admission occurred 7% of the time, with half taking place before delivery and half after delivery. Neonatal mortality was 4.1 per 1000.