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SALT LAKE CITY -- More women are having babies at home across the nation, and Utah leads the way.
The national numbers were declining for 15 years but recently they went up, says a government report.
It's about 0.9 percent now across the nation, which is a far cry from the 44 percent in 1950, say the authors of The National Vital Statistics Reports.
In Utah it's closer to 2 percent of babies not born in a hospital; that put it in the top 10 states. The CDC says 1.7 percent of Utah babies born in 2005 and 2006 were born at home or in a freestanding birth center. One-fifth of the babies born out-of-hospital in 2006 across the nation were unplanned.
Other top states included Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
The births are more common among married white women who already have a few children. It's also more common in rural counties.
E-mail: mrichards@ksl.com
