The government will this year announce which hospitals are to offer 24-hour midwife care, part of efforts to reduce the high infant mortality rate in the Netherlands, health minister Edith Schippers said on Wednesday.

Schippers was reacting to research by Utrecht teaching hospital researchers which showed women who have a midwife-supervised home birth are twice as likely to lose their baby to those cared for in hospitals by obstetricians.
Schippers said the figures are ‘shocking’.
In January a government committee published recommendations to deal with the Dutch perinatal death rate, which is one of the highest in Europe. It recommended the establishment of 24/7 maternity clinics at hospitals, so that every women is no more than 15 minutes from specialist help.