My mother spent 40 hours in labour with her first baby; and was not offered a whiff of anything when they stitched her up!
She worked hard every day of her life, and was stronger than many men! So much for that theory!
My own children were delivered via Caesarean, given the pelvis just wouldn't dilate, even with drugs and a 12 hour wait.
My eldest, when delivering her first, spent around forty sweat soaked exhausting hours in labour.
Birth complications account for a horrendous death rate among third world women, who are simply not offered anything, except natural birthing!
A hospital Doctor being cranky with mostly overweight or obese mums!
So what?
Babies know nothing of hospital timetables or whether a single doctor doing the work of ten, has had enough, or any rest.
I'd bet if you had worked around the clock for three or four days, with little more than a comfort stop/coffee break, you'd be cranky too! But particularly, with the selectively deaf!
Natural births are the best and first choice, but they really ought to occur in a hospital setting, where any complications, like say dangerous postnatal bleeding can be attended to, by trained professionals, with an operating theatre at their fingertips!
We say that native women have been giving birth naturally, since time immemorial!
True, but quite often standing or crouching, where gravity assists! And job done, it's straight back to the back breaking hoe or the plough.
At the end of the day it's not all about you, or any other know it all control freak; but rather, the new and extremely fragile life you bring into this world.
Finally, be truly grateful there were no complications, given any mature age related or other complication, you could have conceivably bled to death in the hour and a half, you needed to travel to hospital!
And who would have looked after or breastfed the baby then?
People do have a freedom of choice, always providing that choice is fully informed and doesn't include another, who is never ever given a say!
Rhrosty

Such is researcher bias. The arguement between medicine and midwives perhaps should be labled the thousand year war.

Typically the mothers who choose midwife birth for a birth plan, would be of a different demographic the majority of mothers.

Typically data bias occurs when midwives deliver the majority of uncomplicated deliveries and the obstretricans get the vast majority of preterm and complicate births.

I should add, people love comparing horror and misfortune stories about their health care.

Women can choose. It is an absolute furphy that anyone tells them what to do with their own bodies, or forces them to avail themselves of the benefits of medical science. So by all means take what risks you choose. Your risks, your choices, but do not forget to own the responsibility later.

I reckon this is just another dimension of the feminist war on ordinary women. Another case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. It is also aimed at preserving an occupation that has finally received the attention of regulators and so it should have.

Honestly you only have to see a display of the tools and techniques of midwives to realise how far medical research has helped women, saving their lives and their infants.

Women in country areas would bless the availability of hospitals and medical specialists, especially where neonatal resuscitation is available.

If it is the deliberate choice of a woman to home birth so be it and good for her. Being adult means informing oneself of the risks benefits and being accountable for any outcomes, both positive and negative.

I have been driving for over 30 years and have have never needed my seat belt, but have always worn one. Similarly birthing does not need doctors, etc unless something goes wrong.

The claim that babies are smarter because of home birthing is purely anecdotal and not supported by evidence.

No judgement here;

I'm just glad that when my little guy got into trouble they were able to zip mummy downstairs and whip him out safe and sound.