Pregnancy and childbirth: is the doctor necessary?

The changing fashions in childbirth over the past 200 years are related to the present demand by women and their partners for "participatory" childbirth, including homebirth. The argument is advanced that doctors must be responsive to these changes. The opinion is made that home birth is currently inappropriate, but that hospitals should provide "birth centres"; and that obstetrics should be conducted by a "team", in which nurse-midwives and family doctors play as important a role as specialist obstetricians.