There's something that happens when you tell people you're thinking about a home birth. Sometimes it's a sharp intake of breath. Sometimes it's a well-meaning but slightly loaded question — "Is that safe?" Sometimes it's just a look. The kind that says: are you sure about that? And even if you feel sure — even if the idea of birthing at home has felt right to you from the very beginning — those reactions have a way of getting under your skin. Of making you question something that, in your...

There's a moment that happens for a lot of pregnant women. You've just had your twelve-week appointment. You waited forty minutes to be seen, the midwife who came in was someone you'd never met before, and the whole thing was over in under ten minutes. You drove home feeling vaguely unsettled, and you couldn't quite put your finger on why. That feeling has a name. It's what happens when care doesn't feel like care — when something as significant as pregnancy gets processed like a routine...