I think it's important to balance out what people see today as normal birth, in a hospital room, flat on their backs, usually with an IV and a fetal monitor hooked up to them. That does happen, but other things are possible.
Women are being told to get midwives [in UK] because there's not enough room and there's not enough pain medicine at the hospitals.
Natural childbirth scares me. I think before you have natural childbirth you should find out how big the baby is. Three pounds -- natural childbirth. Anything over three pounds -- heroin.
When Baby Boomer women started choosing hotel-like birthing centers over hospital delivery rooms, hospitals quickly wised up. Now even rural hospitals offer well-designed labor-delivery-recovery suites.
I believe every woman has the right to any birth experience she wants, wherever she chooses and with whatever care provider she's comfortable. It's about doing your own due diligence and finding the best option for you.
My big thing is I think women should birth their babies, as long as they're healthy and their doctor says it's OK, however they want, whether that means in the hospital with no drugs, at home with an epidural, elective C-section, whatever.
We're going to do a natural birth. At first she was like, 'We should do it at home,' and I said, 'Look, either way, when you go into labor, I will be checking into a hospital... so if you want to come along, come along.
Giving birth was the most amazing thing I've ever done. I'd been living in a Third World country, and I said, 'I'm going to just squat behind a tree.' I basically did that but in a chair in my living room. I didn't want a sterile hospital room. I didn't want doctors. I had a midwife.
I know of no country in the world that has passed a law specifically denying a woman's right to choose where she intends to give birth.
