Or not because it's her birth, her choice.

Yeah, but less cop involvement at a maternity ward.

Don't let the home birthers get to you. They value their emotional crap over medical science. Home Birthing is a dangerous practice that should be as illegal as home liver transplants. If there is a serious complication with the mother or child being far from a hospital can be fatal. "Her birth, her choice" is probably the most selfish thing I could imagine and no I'm not a pro-lifer, I believe in Abortion up until the point the brain has formed enough to have some type of thoughts (which is why this is an altogether different argument)

Are you saying there's no medical science involved with home birth, #50? We aren't talking about black market abortion here. Homebirths require just as much research on the mother's part and licensed midwives won't advise them to give birth at home if they feel there's too much of a high risk. So it is "her birth, her choice" Is it the "right choice"? That's a different question. This family seemed to have made the right choice except they just didn't inform their neighbors.

#50 If giving birth was as risky as you seem to think, the human race would never have had a chance of survival. Yes, there is a miniscule risk that there might be complications, but the vast majority goes over without a hitch, so much so that even at larger hospitals the usually have one operation room and one set of personal on hold for those situations. In addition there is a lot of pre-birth care involved, and if anything is out of the ordinary you know ahead of time and will be strongly adviced agains home birthing. I'm also pretty sure OP did calculate her distance from the next hospital into her decision process. AFAIK in Denmark health insurance covers the cost of having an ambulance on standby in front of your house while you are giving birth so that you don't have to wait for them to arrive if you do have an emergency. As a result home birthing is more common there, so the midwifes are more experienced too.

'Her birth, her choice' May sound like a blanket statement, but it's not, these people do their research, I would of loved to have a home birth but due to pregnancy complications I couldn't. I don't think any mother would go uneducated into that type of situation and doing what you think is best for your child is never a selfish choice. Hospitals are not always the best place to give birth, with my second I gave birth without a midwife present because she left to go get notes and went to lunch instead!

Please explain. People gave birth at home before hospitals existed

So what it's the mothers choice

I personally preferred a hospital and I'm glad I did..(labor and birth complications) but I also think there is nothing wrong with home births as long as the parents are being smart about it. It is not at all uncommon to have a home birth these days. For some families it is a much better choice than their local hospital.

No the life of a baby is NOT the mother's choice and even then we have laws prohibiting things like home kidney removals so even then there are laws that exist to protect us from the retarded people

Except, removing your kidneys at home and giving birth isn't the same...

Women have been giving birth for thousands of years. Midwives are and excellent option due to the fact that births are their specialty. If complications are a factor, then yes, a hospital is probably a better option. Comparing childbirth and removing internal organs is moronic. Props to the new mum, and congrats.

Uh, what? I live in the US and I never have heard a doctor refer to/believe in pregnancy being an illness...

@19 Please provide where you are getting this information. For I highly doubt it is a reputable source.

I think #19 means that the American doctors will give pitocin and epidurals quicker and easier and will do C-Sections sooner than doctors in Western European countries. At least, that's from what I've seen in the documentaries on NatGeo and such.

Ewwwwww!