It's funny when you realize that people usually believe we are weird if we consider having a child anywhere but in a healthcare facility as natural childbirth used to be the only way of child birth. A home birth was anything but special. Then, things altered. Ironically, this didn't mean much for women or their newborns, who often fared better in the house compared to in some of the first hospitals. Early hospitals usually had higher infant fatality rates and much more moms who died in child delivery, even a century ago, in much bigger numbers than moms attended to at home with midwives.
Clearly, medical practice has transformed a lot ever since the first days of labor and delivery in a few of those first nursing homes, however, many things truly haven't. When you line up all the statistics on home birth compared to hospital births, natural childbirth is still less dangerous for the majority of moms and newborns.
Yes, in some cases, it likely is best to have mother give birth in a medical facility. This is often because the birth is high risk or for the reason that mother is expecting multiples. High risk pregnancy can include a mom with preeclampsia or diabetes, or a baby who is preterm. A home birth might also not be the best choice if mother has hypertension. For the majority of moms, however, a home birth is a good option.
Natural childbirth presents alternatives that not all hostipal wards may offer. Often, mothers have more liberty about things like moving around and taking their time, whereas, at a medical center, mother might be confined to a bed, often even buckled in. Being confined in such a way often itself results in a delay in labor. Depending on what time a year mother goes into labor, the hospital might not permit certain visitors to the labor room. For instance in a few spring months, when the risk of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is higher, visitors are often restricted to adults only. RSV brings up another serious problem of hospital stays and that is infection. Infection is among the leading causes of complications and even death in America's hospitals.
The point is that hospital stays, while sometimes necessary, expose both mom and baby to numerous unnecessary hazards and can often restrict mom's options for her own labor and delivery.
There are, of course, other factors that make natural births a better option too. A study in the British Medical Journal found that a "planned home births for low risk women in the USA are associated with similar safety and less medical intervention as low risk hospital births".
Overall, a natural childbirth is generally a safer option than a hospital birth and provide mom options that she might, actually, not even get in the hospital, not the least of which is a safe birth, surrounded by the folks she loves.
