I've just spent an interesting (if not a bit depressing ) morning looking at perinatal statistics for Queensland public hospitals. According to Queensland Health, if you gave birth in a public hospital in 2006 (I did!) here is what we were up against before we even set foot in the door.

Only 33% of us would be allowed to go into labour at a time of our baby's choosing, and not have our labours sped up with drugs (augmented).

Only 59% of us would push our babies out unassisted. 10% of us were helped with instruments (vacuum/forceps), and a further 32% had a caesarean.

Only 37% of us laboured all the way through without any pain relief.

Only 36% of us still had our bits intact after a vaginal birth. The rest of us either had an episiotomy, or experienced injuries varying from a slight graze to a 4th degree tear.

Those of us whose births were attended by obstetricians had triple the risk of having an episiotomy compared to those who's baby was caught by a midwife.

There's more but I've depressed myself quite thoroughly enough. And private hospital statistics of course are much worse.

All I can say ladies is...knowledge is power. You may not be able to control everything that happens during your baby's birth, but the one thing you can control is where you choose to do it, and who you do it with. Mostly we make this decision at the beginning of pregnancy, yet it has such massive implications for what happens at the end which we rarely appreciate until the game is over. It's worth doing your research