I had a completely normal pregnancy and my midwife frequently offered a home birth. Thank goodness I declined. My labour was completely normal and "text-book", but despite this my baby didn't breathe for 17 minutes and had a whole team of drs, midwives, nurses and anaesthetists working on her, using extremely complicated-looking equipment. Thankfully my baby made it and is now a perfectly healthy child - but what if she'd been born at home? I agree that for the right women, a home birth is a great option, but how do you know who those right women (and right babies!) will be? I fitted the criteria perfectly for a home birth but my baby would never have survived if I'd chosen that option. The reasons for her being "flat" (as it was so delicately described) have never been establised.