I think that the wrong end of the equation is being looked at. If I were a politician or a medical 'professional', I would be asking myself WHY so many women are apparently willing to take these risks. Not that I think homebirth is any riskier than hospital, I am pro-homebirth myself, just talking from their perspective. So, rather than spending god knows how much money on ridiculous studies that are only thrown out anyway - why not spend some money finding out why birthing women are so unhappy with the hospital birthing environment? If their focus truly is on women and babies, as opposed to money and power, they need to be asking what THEY need to do to bring back consumer faith. If they wanna treat birth as a business, they need to treat their practice as a business as well.

For myself, the reason I would prefer a homebirth is simply for control. I want to be able to control my environment. I want to be able to control who is allowed into MY environment. I imagine most women would feel the same. So when all I hear from my friends are horror stories of birth rape and trauma, and when all I experience at doctors appointments is condescension and apathy - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that I'm not going to want to birth in a hospital.