Nonhospital VBAC and the Risk of Uterine Rupture

“You might be wondering why I’ve included information about nonhospital VBACS when the possibility of uterine rupture exists. The answer is that there will always be reasonable women who choose to have VBACS in out-of-hospital birth centers or at home.

The fact is that there is less than a 1 percent chance of uterine rupture.1 (When obstetrician Bruce Flamm–a leading VBAC pioneer–and his colleagues evaluated the VBACS of 11,000 women in southern California in 1994, the rupture rate was .5 percent.) Thousands of women have had VBACS in homes and birth centers, sometimes after multiple cesareans, with no problems whatsoever. But when a rupture happens, a cesarean must be performed within 30 minutes. A 1993 California study found that to avoid any neurological damage to the baby, the cesarean should ideally take place in 17 minutes or less.”

Diana Korte
Jenny Hatch