Nikki,
What you are saying about the birth process being handled by midwives
should be true, but here in Israel where most deliveries are done by
midwives and where doctors are only called in when necessary, births are
neither more human nor less hi-tech.  In my hospital, the epidural rates are
95%.....( we had 9100 births last year, and in our labor and delivery the
midwife has at least 2 women in her care at all times. )
The most noticeable thing when you enter the L&D is how quiet it is.....no
moaning, screams, unless it is the midwife screaming "PUSH!!!" ( Chloe
Fisher says that a good midwife will never have to use that four letter word
because if the delivery is handled properly, the woman will know exactly
when to push and will not have to be told.)
I am not blaming the midwives, but the system creates an impossible
situation for normal birthing, and it is definitely easier to deliver a
woman who is  lying there looking up at the ceiling or sleeping while she is
having contractions, than to work with a woman in labor helping her to work
through each contraction like a mountain climber.  Just as it is much easier
to give the baby a bottle than to help the mother work through her
breastfeeding problems step by step.
So even a system with CNM's may not be ideal for non-interventive birth
until mothers start demanding safer births without medication.  They will
only learn this prenatally. You should see how many women we have who have
difficulty walking after epidurals......some temporary, and some long term,
not to mention the devastating births that some babies undergo because the
mother lost control of the birthing process.
We have 22% c-sections rates........very often our maternity ward looks like
a surgical ward.
The home  birth movement has really caught on here and is gaining momentum.
We now have 10 midwives who do home births.
I would love to see birthing centers, but the docs are against it.

Esther Grunis, IBCLC
Lis Maternity Hospital
Tel Aviv, Israel, where even here it is cold ( mid 60's which for us is
really cold).
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