homebirthing - unassisted?

this article from today's wpost discusses "free birth," meaning giving birth at home without the assistance of any trained professionals - just you and your hubby and other kids.
my first reaction is - hey, even in days of yore they had midwives...
(musa is standing on the ottoman which he has just recently learned to climb and giving nobody in particular a lecture, which involves a lot of gesturing toward the plant i told him he couldn't touch)(ha! i've outsmarted him(for now) by turning the ottoman on its short side so it's too tall for him to climb... now he's gone off to climb the windowsill instead)
anyway! so, i have two friends who had midwife-assisted homebirths, which seemed to have been the successful and empowering experiences they were hoping for. i am thinking of using a midwife instead of a doctor next time (no, i'm not pregnant) inshallah - at a birthing center though, at least! - even though my experience with doctor and hospital last time was not such a bad thing. sure, i got the attitude that i was crazy for not getting an epidural, etc., but i also got a lot of support from the nurses through pushing, etc., which i did while squatting. i did have an episiotomy, which i don't regret (thankfully it healed well) but i think it was a medical decision that was probably not entirely necessary (the doc was basically like, you should have delivered by now... and i probably would have torn otherwise... but there is a perspective that would answer - why is that? is there a specific time bracket in which any given woman "should have delivered"? again - not that i am upset i didn't have to push any longer...)
i can completely understand the sentiment behind free birth - it's the same that makes me shy away from the medicalization of most childbirth, the quickness to induce, the pressure for epidurals, the overuse of c-section, and then the intrusive, restraining monitoring during labor, etc... but... to me the hospital, or at least the proximity of a medical professional, is a precaution at least. sure, it's not necessary most of the time, especially for healthy young mothers, and sure babies and mothers die in hospitals, too, but generally that's because the docs have done whatever they can and nothing else can be done... why risk not even having that option? yes, women have done it by themselves - often with the herblore and experience of midwives - for centuries, but mother and infant mortality was also sky-high for those centuries. the absorption of childbirth into the medical world helped to drastically reduce those mortality rates. perhaps it went too far, in making childbirth a medical procedure when it is in fact a completely natural physical process, but that's no reason to turn your back on it completely at the risk of endangering yourself or your baby. i'd prefer to use it as much as i need to, and claim the rest of the experience for my own...