"Prior to hospital births thousands of women and babies died, even after the advent of antibiotics in the 50's.
Most homebirths do go fine, but it is a risk and - and its not a risk I would every think about taking with any child of mine."
Much larger number of babies in the UK were born at home in the 1960's, when the c/s rate was less than 5%. Mortality and morbidity rates for childbirth actually dropped dramatically before this, after the advent of the welfare state. What made a real difference to maternal and neonatal mortality was women getting proper medical care prior to pregnancy, antenatal care during pregnancy and the attention of properly qualified midwives in labour. Yes, maternal and infant mortality were higher then than they are now, but most of the decline in maternal and infant mortality today is down to prenatal diagnosis of disease and disability, prevention of blood clots and advances in emergency care for mothers with pre-eclampsia. If you want to know more you might want to read this - it's very illuminating:
analysis
Thousands and thousands and thousands of babies are born at home every year in Europe - only about 2000 in the UK, but many, many more than this in Holland where one in three babies are born at home. If homebirth was truly as risky as you say you would expect to see much worse outcomes for babies born during planned homebirths than for babies born in hospital. In fact the evidence from this country and from Holland suggests that babies born at home are no more likely to die or have a serious birth injury than babies born to low risk mothers in hospital. In fact current research shows they're more likely to be born with good apgar scores and less likely to need admission to SCBU if they're born at home.
They're also more likely to breastfeed (and breastfed babies are less likely to die from cot-death, the most common cause of death in babies under 1). Mothers who have their babies at home are more likely to have good mental health after birth, and we all know how important this is for babies. And mothers are far more likely to escape from the whole affair without a serious birth injury.
"this fella's shoulders got stuck and I was glad to be in a hospital"
I looked at my experience of shoulder dystocia a different way. I was profoundly glad NOT to be in hospital when exactly the same thing happened to me and my baby. My reasons for feeling this are that my midwives were unusually calm and well prepared for dealing with a s/d. As homebirth midwives they knew that there was no one to pass the buck to, so they were very, very well-drilled and prepared with their strategy for resolving this problem and were able to spring into action straight away. Unlike in hospital where you get often get people running into the room, a sense of panic and a giant episiotomy (don't know if this happened to you but in many hospitals it's normal protocol with a S/D), my experience was much less adrenaline fuelled and frightening. I also didn't get cut, which is pretty remarkable with an 11lb baby.
Would also want to flag up that s/d is probably MUCH more prevalent in hospital births because of its association with augmentation, induction, epidural and supine birth, all of which are common features of hospitalised birth. Yes - if you had a catastrophic and difficult to resolve s/d then having a paediatrician on standby could be a life-saver for your baby, but this event is very, very rare. The vast majority of s/d's are resolved without medical input, which means they can be dealt with as well at home as in hospital. And of course you're putting yourself more at risk of having an S/D in the first place by walking through the door of the labour ward to give birth to your baby.