Letter: Homebirth hell

Sir: I thought the point was to make sure mothers were given no choice about childbirth - at home or in hospital (letter, 8 September).

In 1958 at the age of 37 (old in those days) I begged for a hospital birth at my local hospital but was told that, as my first baby had been born 20 months earlier in hospital with no complications, there was absolutely no need for me to go to hospital for the birth.

I hated the home birth, with newspaper spread all over the floor and my husband happily spending the entire night downstairs with the midwife while I was left to get on with it for hours with a pupil/learner. I would have been far happier out of the home and would have been quite able to return home at any time after the birth.

Women who want home births so often seem to be refused and I do find it perverse.