Has anyone has significant experiences with home birth?

I'll be able to better answer your question next month. After my baby is born.

BUT! - Here's a useful link - http://www.midwiferytoday.com/homebirth.asp

I would like to suggest that you have a birthing centre birth instead, that way you have all the comfort of home but if anything goes wrong you can be transferred easy if it was to happen since you are inside the hospital. I had a birthing centre birth with my son and will be also doing it with his birth, the rooms are very nice, double bed, spa, fridge, kettle, ETC, all the comforts of home. No drugs and all natural. Have a look into it anyway.

I had my son at home and several of my friends also had homebirths.

I had a hard 48 hour labor that quite likely would have been a c-section in the hospital as I had no progress until 46 hours in. I was very happy that I stayed home and would do it again. I highly reccomend having a doula no matter where you birth. I found mine invaluable even though my midwives were also there.

Here are what I see as the positives of having a home birth vs. the hospital births of some of my friends:

I felt safe enough to go inward and pay attention to what my body was telling me without the distraction of nurses in and out, people checking me and being hooked up to an IV or monitor.

I was never pushed to accept pain medication or a c-section.

Everything was up to me, but the midwives also monitored the baby with a doppler to be certain there was no fetal distress.

I was not given a time frame in which I had to progress in order to avoid a c-section.

I was free to eat and drink as I felt neccesary. After 2 days of hard labor I would not have been able to push my son out if I had not been fed spoonfuls of molasses and drinks of juice between contractions. I most hospitals this would not be allowed for fear of a c-section and needing anasthesia, but it prevented a c-section for me.

After the baby was born, instead of people interrupting us or taking my son away to clean him up or give him shots, or anything else, we had time to nurse and bond. All of this in the comfort of my home with the midwives asking if I minded if they cleaned him, could they hold him, etc. He was never moved without first asking me if it was ok. We did not weigh him until hours after birth when I was ready and we never measured him until the next day because I didn't want to unswaddle him and wake him. These things were eventually all done, but they didn't take precedence over our other needs at the time.

I went to sleep with my babe and my husband and we woke to a clean house with no trace of the birth. The midwives came back to check on us the next day and twice more in the next week.

There is a very wonderful book by Ina May Gaskin that gives statistics on homebirth vs. hospital birth. It is called Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. She lived on a commune where they had over 90percent home births and had more experience as a homebirth midwife than almost any other midwife living today. My husband did not want me to birth at home for fear of it being too dangerous. After reading the last chapter of that book with it's extensive statistics he was open to a home birth.

Also, most doctors have never seen a natural birth from start to finish. While a midwife does not have more training than a doctor, she usually has far more experience with birth than they do. Even if an OB has done 100 births and so has the midwife, the midwife has seen more of every birth as the hospital medical community does not allow for a doctor to stay with any one patient for more than a short time. I am not belittling the doctors, it is the system within which they work that hinders them.

All that said, I believe you are safest where you feel safest. If you were uncomftable and frightened at home that would hinder your birth. If you see yourself as more comfortable at home than you would likely birth best there.

I highly reccomend that book. It was a priceless educational resource.

Mortality percent in home birth is more than hospital birth.