I agree with much of what you say.... but just speaking for myself, I don't actually want to give birth at home. There are a variety of reasons for that, some important, some completely trivial. But for me the clincher is this - there is one thing that you will never have at home, and that is a neonatal ICU. And unfortunately when my daughter was born, that was what she needed. She just did not start breathing. Her heart rate was fine, but she had zero respiratory effort, apgars of 2 at 1 and 3 at 5. The obstetrician, in perhaps the only moment in which he earned his exorbitant fee, figured out something was wrong while she was being born, and there was a paediatric registrar in the room before her body was out.

They worked on her for 20 minutes before rushing her to neonatal high dependency. The thought of having to call an ambulance, wait for an ambulance, ride to hospital and be triaged while my baby's life hung in the balance - and while having a PPH myself - makes my blood run cold. And truth be told I believe that if I had given birth at home I would not have a 2 year old daughter now.

Apart from being post-dates, there was absolutely no warning or reason why she didn't start breathing. My pregnancy was completely uneventful, I had monitoring the previous day and through the entire labour and she was fine. Never even had significant decels. No one was ever able to offer any explanation for it at all.

FWIW my birth experience itself was OK, not amazing but OK.... in terms of the hospital system I guess you would say I was lucky. Yes I had ARM and synto augmentation and continuous monitoring (I was 11 days post-dates which rang alarm bells for ob - I recognise a midwife would be unlikely to see this as a problem), but I gave birth in six hours using only gas for pain without a tear, graze or stitch. By the following morning the only thing that hurt was my feet which were still massively swollen and suffered from schlepping 5 floors to see DD in SCN (where she was moved to after observation overnight).

Having said that I have friends - including my MIL - who have had wonderful homebirths, and wouldn't have it any other way. I absolutely support the choice to homebirth with midwifery support. Horses for courses. I just don't see why I should HAVE to give birth at home in order to access worthwhile maternity services.