Once upon a time it was considered dangerous and risky to undertake a home birth. Public opinion followed the view that there would be huge risk to mother and child. The safer option was to go to hospital under the supervision of doctors and with high technological equipment at hand, the risks involved in childbirth would be limited. However the advances of prenatal technology means potential risks to the baby may now be detected well before the birth.Therefore if no abnormalities are detected and there is a history of safe deliveries in the expectant mothers family, then there is no reason why hospital birth would be safer than home birth.

In less affluent areas there may not be enough resources. Many primary care trusts do not have enough money allocated towards maternity wards. Despite government proposals, the money simply is not where it needs to be. Women opting for home births would benefit from their own midwife but in a hospital there may not be one housewife per pregnant woman. Thus the standard of care received during chilbirth would be lower in the hospital.

There are constant reminders of this in the headlines. Although MRSA limiting targets have recently been met, it does still leave doubt in the mind of some patients. For those entering hospital in order to undertake surgery there is no choice. However for expectant mothers who have received the all-clear (in that their delivery should not have any abnormal risk), they can choose whether to bring their child into a possible unclean and unhygenic world or whether to go through with the delvery at home.