My last post dealt with the information I gathered from the Montana Department of Health and Human Services. I have a bit more information from Montana that I am still digesting, but here we go . . .
In Montana (2005), only 293 of 11,556 (2.5%) births occurred outside of a hospital. I don’t know for sure that the hospital birth figure includes birth centers, but I would assume so. In Missoula County (2005), we had 57 of 1650 birth taking place outside of the hospital which is only 3.4%, less than a percentage point above the state average. This surprises me since Missoula prides itself on being progressive, what with being the hometown of the flagship state University and all. It was interesting to note that in nearby Ravalli County in 2005, 44 of their 240 births were non-hospital births – a significant 18.3%! I am curious to know what is going on over there in Ravalli County!
More Missoula County (2005) Vital Statistics:
- 1650 live births
- 10 fetal deaths (1.1% of all county deaths)
- 10 infant deaths (I don’t know if/how this relates to childbirth complications)
- 1 maternal death (I’m assuming related to childbirth)
Whereas the Missoula County Infant Mortality Rate from 2001-2005 was 4.7 (per 1,000 live births).
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