Someone else may have said this already but I haven't read all 9 pages.
Yes the program was skewed (most usually are) but the point they really failed to emphasise was not the "oh look how dangerous it is" vs " what a wonderful natural experience" debate but the factors which had caused these women to go this way in the 1st place.
The London ex-nurse appeared to have had a traumatic time with her hospital births to the point that she has no trust for mws. Being an ex-nurse this may have contributed to her not wanting much to do with any part of the medical establishment. She did have some AN care but when she informed them of what she was going to do they got nasty so she left.
Yes there is homebirth available in this country and on the NHS. But it is not available to everyone either because of your risk status or because of resources. Maybe if she'd fought a lot she would have got it but given her distrust of mws it was unlikely that this would have been her ideal outcome.
No.2 who I now discover is a doula seemed the oddest of the lot as she did just seem to be ignoring the risks and not bothering finding ways to make it work.
The American was the saddest. I'm not sure what the law is in colorado but I know that in certain US states it is illegal for mws to assist at a home birth and in others they will lose their insurance and therefore thier livelihood. This means that women are left with a situation where they have to choose between hospital or nothing. In addition, her lack of AN care may have been due to money or to the fact that many states also have rather anarchic laws on rights of baby (namely they have more than mother) and by entering the system she would face the risk of being confined or having the baby forcibly removed by c-section on the grounds of mental problems of the mother. Seems a bit severe when the desire not to go back to hospital is caused by their conduct in the first place.
The part at the end of her birth where (she quite sensibly) went to hospital because her placenta had not delivered and their response - "what will you let us do to you" "what do you need to do" "we'll only tell you once you've told us what we can do" is not the sort of medical care anyone wants to receive.
I personally think that freebirthing with no one or someone with no idea of what to do in an emergency present, is foolhardy and irresponsible as you and they may not be able to deal with the problems that come up. Homebirth is definitely appropriate in a larger number of cases than it is currently used for. The real problem (in the UK) is that we need a greater number of midwives and resources than is currently allocated to allow women to give birth w/out unnecessary interventions caused by the need to rush women in and out of hospitals to free up beds. Yes childbirth in hospital is safer than it used to be for many but in some ways it is more dangerous for lower risk women.
Rant over.