If I had ever thought a home birth was a good plan the experience of a close friend last Sunday would have changed my mind. Following a totally normally birth she began haemorrhaging rapidly and potentially catastrophically. Had she not been in a hospital and rapidly transferred to theatre where a consultant obstretrician stopped the bleeding we would not now be celebrating a new baby but planning a funeral. Interestingly in my extremely subjective experience she is the third friend to suffer potentially duisasterous blood loss following childbirth in a year (In different hospitals and indeed different parts of the country.) does this reflect current short staffing in maternity units I wonder or is it simply coincidence. I do know that should I ever get to the point of reproducing it will be hospital for me everytime.