I read up a lot for my 2nd birth, I wanted it to be at home without intervention. Because of the prevalent attitude in the NHS, many women don’t know their rights and actually the amount of choice they have in childbirth. I would have preferred to have had one midwife through the whole thing. The community midwives were ok but there were a couple I was praying weren’t on shift when I was in labour. I had a very difficult long labour but with the threat of transferring to hospital something happened and baby was born in 5 minutes! The midwife at this point was sensitive about discussing transfer to hospital, BUT my baby was not handed to me straight away as asked. Plus she had no clean gloves so my husband had to use a pair from under our kitchen sink (clean but not sterile). The worst thing about the labour and birth itself was not being allowed to start the gas and air as the home birth canisters are ridiculously small. Supply larger ones! I also didn’t like the threat every time I had an appointment with the CMs, they kept saying ooh, I hope we’ve enough staff on that day, trying to intimate it would be better to go into hospital. I knew they legally had to attend me so I ignored what they were saying. I know midwives are worried about lack of experience with home births but this obviously will improve if they encourage low risk women to have them.