Wow, your post really looks at things from a different perspective from what I'd thought of before, it's good to hear different perspectives.

I don't think I can answer all your questions but I guess I feel I should point out a few things that struck me while reading your post.

Traumatic birth experiences - as much as we would like it not to be the case, delivering babies comes with risks. Unfortunately things can and do happen that make the experience traumatic. Years ago many women and babies died during child birth because the knowledge and methods were just not around to deal with when these risks became realities. So what you will learn from this site and others like it is that you make choices in your care and delivery that increase the chances of things going well or badly, but at the end of the day there are a lot of physical aspects of birthing that will go the way they are going to go regardless of what we do or don't do. For example some babies end up laying in a position that doesn't allow them to get down the birth canal. You can see an ob, a midwife, birth in a hospital, in a birthing centre, at home, heck try in the zoo if you like but that baby isn't going to come out sideways whatever you do.

You say that people most people see an ob, birth on their back and 9 times out of 10 this ends traumatically. I don't have statistics on this but the anecdotal evidence I have seen does not support this. Lots of women choose this model of care and have great births. I am on another forum where I would say 80% of women have chosen this path and probably 95% of that 80% have been really happy with their birth experiences. I guess what I am trying to say is that I think the members of this forum may not statistically represent the wider community. Because there is a lot of information about birth choices on here it attracts women who are looking for that information i.e. women who have had bad experiences and want future experiences to be better. I think this site is fabulous and has some exception information for women, but I wouldn't use it as a statistical measuring stick.

As for interventions leading to more interventions - I think the evidence is so strong that in many cases this is true. This is what I was talking about earlier, there are many choices that you can make that will increase the chances of a birth going well. But we also need to realise that different women are faced with very different births and any 'one size fits all' statement is not always true. So while I whole heartedly agree that unnecessary intervention can cause more unecessary intervention in many birth stories, there are equally birth stories where intervention prevents other intervention. For example I had some interventions which meant that I was able to be conscious when my DD was born, and my SIL was able to have a vaginal delivery after an induction which would have been a certain C-section had the baby arrived later and bigger (baby was large, got very very stuck, mother and baby suffered injuries from getting baby unstuck, was VERY VERY close to being a C-section).

I think the best thing you can do, as you have mentioned, is be educated. Know what choices to make to increase your chances of having a posative birth experience. At the same time keep in mind that some things are just going to happen how they are going to happen and you can only go with the flow and do the best you can.

First birth experiences aren't traumatic just because they are first births. I think if you are in the dark about the birthing process you are more likely to have a negative experience, but at the same time I know many women who are very in the dark who have had very posative experiences. I think it is a bit of education and a bit of luck.

Good luck...x