There's a definite trend in maternity wards, and in society at large, to make giving birth a more natural experience, more like some think nature intended it to be: quiet support, little intervention and a mobile woman in charge of her own body.

Taking that trend to the next step is the much smaller movement toward unassisted birth, which is giving birth at home without the assistance of any type of medical professional, including midwives. Instead, the mother may be assisted by her spouse or partner, a relative or good friend or she may just be alone.

The reasons a woman would choose to give birth unassisted are varied and complex. When Laura Shanley, founder of UnassistedChildbirth.com, chose to do so in the 1970s and 1980s, she insists it wasn't a "hippie" decision or any kind of social protest; she merely wanted to get back to basics in the area of childbirth. She and her husband had been studying the history and psychology of childbirth, as well as birthing options, for two years before she ever became pregnant. When she did get pregnant, they felt there was no one else who could ensure they got the birth experience they wanted.

"At that point we'd already learned so much it seemed like we would have to educate and train anyone we brought into the process," Shanley says. "We felt we had a good, intuitive understanding of why things go wrong in birth, and, intellectually, we felt we could do this."

The Shanleys went on to have four more children at home (one of whom did not survive due to a genetic condition that had nothing to do with the birthing process) and Laura Shanley became an advocate for unassisted childbirth, even authoring the book, Unassisted Childbirth (Bergin & Garvey, 1994). She says that since then, although birthing rooms have been made homier and other aesthetic improvements have been made to the birthing atmosphere, women still have few choices once they either go to a hospital or allow a midwife to become part of their birthing experience.

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