Home birth was, until the advent of modern medicine, the "de facto" method of delivery. In many developed countries, home birth declined rapidly over the 20th century. In the United States there was a large shift towards hospital births beginning around 1900, when close to 100% of births were at home. Rates of home births fell to 50% in 1938 and to fewer than 1% in 1955. However, between 2004 and 2009, the number of home births in the United States rose by 41%. In the United Kingdom a similar but slower trend happened with approximately 80% of births occurring at home in the 1920s and only 1% in 1991. In Japan the change in birth location happened much later, but much faster: home birth was at 95% in 1950, but only 1.2% in 1975. In countries such as the Netherlands, where home births have been a regular part of the maternity system, the rate for home births is 20% in 2014. Over a similar time period, maternal mortality during childbirth fell during 1900 to 1997 from 6–9 deaths per thousand to 0.077 deaths per thousand, while the infant mortality rate dropped between 1915 and 1997 from around 100 deaths per thousand births to 7.2 deaths per thousand.