As I said originally, the complete dataset can be found at CDC Wonder http://wonder.cdc.gov/lbd.html. The dataset can be queried to find out the neonatal death rate for white women, 37+ weeks, 2500+ gm, with singletons who delivered in the hospital in 2000, which was 0.9/1000. Johnson and Daviss have already publicly acknowledged this on their website Understanding Birth Better.

If you prefer, we can remove lethal congenital anomalies. There were 1863 deaths, of which 1001 were due to lethal congenital anomalies. That means that the neonatal death rate for hospital birth in 2000  (white women 37+ weeks, 2500+ gm singletons) was 0.34/1000.

maria:

"Would you please link me to this, Dr. Amy?"

I'm not ignoring your questions, maria. Henci Goer has limited me to only one response on this blog and I am saving the response for her.

If you'd like to find out more, a great deal more, you can visit my blog Homebirth Debate (homebirthdebate.blogspot.com). You can post as many questions as you want there and I will try to answer them all.

Thank you for providing the results of this data query. Six newborns of the 5418 women intending home birth at the start of labor died in the neonatal period in the Johnson study, which calculates to 1.1/1000. 

-- Henci  

'which calculates to 1.1/1000"

Those are not the only deaths. However, even if you restrict the deaths only to those 6, that still means that the neonatal death rate at homebirth in 2000 was triple that of the neonatal death rate at hospital birth in 2000 (0.34/1000), just as I have claimed.

Posted by Maria (above): I have yet to find where Johnson and Daviss admitted to have detorted the truth in the link you gave earlier. All I could find online was this http://understandingbirthbetter.com/section.php?ID=31&Lang=En&Nav=Section

Thank you, Maria! I just went to the page and read it through. Anyone who wants a calm, reasoned, scholarly explanation of the caveats of making appropriate statistical comparisons with the MANA 2000 study should follow your link. It does a better job of responding to Tuteur than I can do, which is not surprising since the author is an epidemiologist, and I am not.  

As for Amy's mention of other deaths that I omitted from my calculation, this is a prime example of how she misuses data. The "other deaths" were not neonatal deaths. They were intrapartum deaths and therefore were not relevant to a comparison with hospital-based neonatal deaths. Indeed, Amy's persistent confusion over what is encompassed by "neonatal deaths"--this is not the first time I have pointed this out to her in this Forum--brings to mind Andrew Zang's comment: "He  [or, in this case, she] uses statistics the way a drunken man uses lamposts--more for support than illumination."

-- Henci

So here's where I am with this: Aside from responding to Amy's assertion that she is qualified to discuss mortality stats and I am not, I have deleted Amy's posts along with your responses to Amy's attacks on my integrity. (Apologies for deleting the responses, but it didn't make sense to leave them up after I deleted the rant.) I think there is enough information in this thread and the links and sources provided in the posts that anyone who wants to make their own evaluation of the Johnson and Daviss paper, can do so. Therefore, I would like first to thank those of you who contributed positively to the discussion and second to declare that we are done with the topic of the MANA 2000 stillbirth and neonatal mortality statistics.

-- Henci

Amy --

I have given you the rules for this site. They permit you to have your fair say. You may do as you please on your on website, but I will not allow you to hijack this Forum to use as another platform for your rants or to bully or attack me or others.  If you persist in flouting those rules--which, by the way, I would apply to anyone who behaves as objectionably as you do--you will be barred from posting in the future. It's your call.

-- Henci 

Could you please explain the rules?

Dr. Ho asked for clarification of links that I provided and I responded with the clarification and the exact relevant quotes. Why did you delete that post?

You get one post and one rebuttal as follows:

1. You post on a new topic.
2. I respond.
3. You rebut.
4. I respond.

or

1. You respond to a post of mine or someone else's.
2. I respond.
3. You rebut.
4. I respond.

This provides a fair opportunity for you to make your case.

In light of what has gone on with this thread, I will add a new rule: You will respect my authority as moderator to declare a moratorium on a topic. I posted that there had been enough information and resource links on the issue of the MANA 2000 home birth neonatal mortality statistics for people to make their own evaluations. I could, of course, lock the thread so no one can post to it, but I'm not having a problem with anyone else, so rather than do that, I would rather handle the problem by dealing with you as an individual case. I am not singling you out. I would apply the same rules to anyone who behaves as you do, but so far, you are the only one.

-- Henci

When I type my posts and hit for a new paragraph, the software automatically puts an empty line between the paragraphs. If that doesn't happen for you, or if it happens when you are typing a post but not in the uploaded version, try hitting   twice when you want a new paragraph.

-- Henci