LSU Grad of '89 writes:

: OK, this really bothered me so I will share it in hopes that I am just too
: used to the "modern" way. A woman at work is having hr first child, she's
: ~5months and has had no visits to an OB or Doctor. She is completely relying
: on a midwife. She will have a natural birth at home with the midwife and
: husband in attendance.

Sounds like a nice plan to me. I never saw a doctor during my
pregnancy, and I don't plan to with any future ones either. I loved
my completely natural, drug-free non-hospital birth attended by a
midwife and wouldn't trade it for all the ultrasounds in the world. I
liked not having tons of routine-but-unnecessary-for-me tests and
ultrasounds. My midwives checked my urine and blood pressure and the
baby's growth and everything at each appointment, and had anything
arisen that seemed wrong (or if I had wanted to have an u/s to see the
baby's sex), they would have referred us to a doctor right away. (In
fact, when a minor concern about me arose after the delivery, they had
an OB come right over to give his opinion, and he deemed all to be
fine.) Most of all, I loved that I was cared for by women who cared
about all aspects of my pregnancy, physical and emotional, and that my
baby was born in a quiet, low-tech setting where the emphasis was on
new-family-bonding and snuggling our baby, and I loved that she was
born calm and alert and very ready to nurse and gaze into our eyes.
It was completely wonderful, everything I could have hoped for and
more. But that's just my opinion; I know it isn't the right choice
for everyone, but for a low-risk woman with an uncomplicated
pregnancy, it's perfectly safe, maybe even safer (as Larry pointed
out).

And Larry wrote:
Unfortunately you have a view of midwives that is straight out of the middle
ages.

Nah, in the middle ages, they had a better view of midwives.

-Sara (Middle Ages student) and
Mommy to a perfectly-healthy, still-happily-nursing 18-month-old
"What's a hospital?" baby girl