Yeah. I would add that my maternal ancestors who had their babies at home with midwives had much much lower mortality than those who had their babies in hospitals prior to the advent of antibiotics. I only counted one ‘country mom’ who lost her life in childbearing in the 150 years prior to 2000. And that was her first. The first baby was the litmus test apparently.
Both my parents were born at home. I asked my grandmother once why she had my mom at home, in 1941, when there was a hospital literally 2 blocks away. She got a horrified look on her face and said hospitals were death traps prior to antibiotics and nobody went there unless they were near to dying. My great aunt was a RN and was the assist at my grandmothers births prior to the doc getting there.
Antibiotics are great things. Proper sanitation ensures they’re not unnecessarily overused and invalidated via resistance mechanisms.
Actually, it was prior to the advent of handwashing.
Puerperal fever, the great maternal killer, was almost always a result of poor attendant sanitation.
My parents were born at home on the ranch, and no one thought anything of it, even though there was a hospital 50-60 miles away.
Some of my cousins have had home births,too-it has enjoyed a resurgence with people in remote areas-a nurse practitioner who is a midwife is cheaper-and safer-than a hospital if there are no complications anticipated. I had my kid at a military hospital, Lamaze method-I went home 12 hours later to rest where it was nice and quiet...