Catherine, it can take the same amount of time for a woman to transfer to hospital than it can to set up for surgery sometimes. When the WHO says 15% of c/s are medically necessary, thats 85% who do not medically need one - huge percent. Of that, high risk women are not accepted for a homebirth - so if you are high risk, you will be in a hospital anyway. Birth is not automatically a medical event. It is just like digestion, yes it involves another life, but it is designed to work, so we can evolve and succeed as a race.
Interventions cause c/s and they happen in hospital. Stats also say hospitals have more intervention. Infection is caught at hospitals, so the risk at home is not that great. Haemorrhage is much less at home, again, another thing caused by intervention.
Women are giving birth in environments not condusive to normal, physiological childbirth so it is no woner there is all this fear and sense of urgency around it. But once you see the beautiful births I have and witnessed the competency and nurturing of an independant midwife, you will also see there is another, beautiful side to it.
You can have an independant midwife in hospital too. You can have a doula etc. But couples on their own, in hospital with no continuous care generally fare less better than those who do, because it is the nature of the system these days. Having that support means you have options external to policy which are not always woman friendly and in line with other things like WHO. They can give you suggestions and help you avoid what you want to avoid, have seen it many times... how are you expected to know when you are faced by whitecoats and you are in the throws of labour? Takes a straight thinker who is not on the payroll of the hosptial.
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