According to research in the October American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, of every 1,000 babies born at home with a midwife attending, 1.6 lacked a pulse and weren’t breathing five minutes after birth. For hospital births with a doctor, the rate was 0.16 per 1,000 infants. “It’s a very low occurrence rate,” Dr. Michael Malloy, a neonatologist at UTMB who wasn’t part of the study, told Science News. “I’m not a great advocate of home delivery. It scares me. But I can see the other side, if a woman wishes to have the experience of doing this at home.”