Home away from home: the alternative birth center

Hospital alternative birth centers (ABCs) were established in response to consumer demands for 'family-centered maternity care'. This paper considers the controversy among advocates of different childbirth alternatives, including ABCs, home birth and conventional hospital birth. The expectations and evaluations of a sample of women who chose ABC births are compared to attitudes towards the ABC of women who selected home births or conventional hospital births. Women who choose the ABC and those who select home birth share some critical views of conventional labor and delivery, but not the same overall ideology of childbirth. Women who choose the ABC and women who choose conventional labor and delivery share beliefs in the authority of hospital obstetrics and the expertise of physicians.