OK, first, I actually can't be bothered to pick apart that tirade against me, because there is so much glaring factual inaccuracy it would take me all night. I don't think I was 'ranting' in my first post, I was just pointing out that some of the things NHS... said were inaccurate, and I never said that Tom was right about the things he said re dying of lung cancer etc. What I will say, is this (bearing in mind there will be members of the public reading this, who may be terrified by some of the things that have been said in the above post): for term healthy pregnancy, research shows that home birth is as safe as hospital birth for mothers and babies. With regards to midwives' training, we are actually not nurse specialists. We are a separate profession in our own right and have been since 1902, in fact. We train for three years. We are trained in adult and neonatal resus, and carry oxygen and resus equipment to homebirths. We are trained to recognise the signs and potential precursors to obstetric emergency and act accordingly (for example, if at any point there was something not quite right with a labour at home I would recommend to the mother that we transfer to hospital). I would wonder what the good doctor thought was 'experienced' enough to carry out home birth? Some midwifery practices have homebirth rates of over 30%.... and that is in the NHS. On a personal level, I would question whether a woman and her baby are indeed safer in hospital (I have known several occasions where a midwife has had to resuscitate a baby in theatre when the Paediatric SHO has been unable to deal with it, in one instance the midwife was trying to calm the SHO down at the same time as she was having a noisy panic attack and scaring the parents!). And on a final note, more because I can think of it than anything else: how dare you question my practice? You have made sweeping generalisations about midwives, you have been derogatory about my own ways of practising; how do you know what I am like with my clients? I would like to stress that homebirth is a choice that I would promote, as with any other choice. However, that is all it is- a choice- and I give the women and their families the information so they can make their own choices about things, and that includes reasons why I would maybe advise them against home birth in some cases. Not everyone makes the choices I'd like them to- but they are not my choices, I do not have to live with them and I would not be doing my job if I were to force, coerce or bully women into doing something because I thought it was in their best interests. Oh, and it's expertise, not expertese. Six years of medical school...