title: Home visits for pregnancy complications and management of antenatal care: an overview of three randomized controlled trials.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine whether a policy of home visits reduces the amount of antenatal care provided by hospital maternity units.
  
  
  METHODS
  A meta-analysis of three randomized controlled trials.
  
  
  METHODS
  9 maternity units in France.
  
  
  METHODS
  1410 women with pregnancy complications.
  
  
  METHODS
  1 or 2 home visits a week by a midwife.
  
  
  METHODS
  Admission rate and length of stay in hospital.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The home-visiting system did not affect the hospital admission rate (typical odds ratio = 0.9; 95% CI = 0.7-1.2). In each trial, the length of hospital stay did not differ between the intervention and the control groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The home-visiting system did not greatly alter the practice of antenatal hospital admission in the maternity units studied. The results question the way the health services were used and suggest that a better integration of hospital and home services is needed to make a more rational use of health care resources.
authors.affiliation: INSERM-U 149, Maternal and Child Health Epidemiological, Villejuif, France.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Blondel
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Breart
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006760:Hospitalization; D006792:House Calls; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D008880:Midwifery / Q000191:economics; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000628:therapy*; D011295:Prenatal Care / Q000379:methods*; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic