proselyting of the mid-wife, natural-birth movement. (This is the same proselyting that we get from the natural and organic food movements too, which I hate). I dislike the anti-doctor/western medicine movement from the anti-vaxxers and other whole living movements. But, I also hate the vilifying of home birthing from the other side. I've noticed a lot of women feel threatened any time another woman does something differently (especially in child birth). There is nothing inherently moral nor immoral with either option. Neither option is better than the other option. Yet, in childbirth, it seems like everyone pushes their own agenda on everyone else. We had a horrible experience at the hospital with the epidural and my wife's doctor. So we decided to do something different.

In our experience, midwives are much more service oriented (obviously that was just our experience). The danger of having a baby outside a hospital is way exaggerated. A lot of the high infant mortality rates were actually caused by doctors. Once they figured out they had to wash their hands between working on patients, infant mortality rates improved substantially.

Would I have done it at home if we lived an hour from a hospital, no. But when you are 10-15 minutes from a hospital, we weren't concerned.

I hate hospitals and was thrilled when my wife decided to do it at home. Plus, being self employed, it saved me quite a bit of money.