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Most births can go smoothly without a lot of intervention. Some births would go horribly wrong for the mother and baby without intervention. There is a place for home births, birth centers AND hospitals. The most important thing is appropriate care. Any provider must recognize where a home birth is no longer appropriate and to transfer the laboring woman to a more medical setting.

Listening to the speaker on the radio complain about her doctor, it sounds like she should have found a different provider but that it wasn't so much about doctors vs midwives as about a bad practitioner. I used midwives for my first birth and a doctor for my second (twin) pregnancy. Both were extremely warm and caring AND provided appropriate care.

It is annoying to hear people suggest that ALL midwives provide better care than ALL doctors or that home birth is always better than hospital experience. My physicians for my twin pregnancy respected my desire to have a low-intervention birth and helped me have a safe vaginal birth despite my risk factors. Without their care my birth could have gone horribly wrong and ended in an emergency cesarean. I will be forever appreciative for their love and support and wonderful medical care.

posted 2 years, 9 months ago
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