My sister was delivered by midwives at home (in 1971.) She wasn’t breathing, but the midwives kept her alive until the ambulance came. She had no lasting ill effects. She did scare my parents to death, though.
See this site for more ifno about the safety of homebirth. Corroborating Citations on the Safety of Homebirth
Keep in mind, all those “doctor shows” are pure fiction, nothing but slightly better acted & written soaps.
I had my first with pictocin. I had been in labor for 48 hours. I hadn’t been able to sleep at all so they broke my waters, gave me the drip & an epidural. I was so tired I fell asleep for 3 hours. When I woke up the baby had crowned, and it was time to start pushing. She was out in about 45 min. It went okay other than my 3rd degree tear + epesiotomy. 
Ouch.
With my second I went in to labor at 8pm, went to the hospital at midnight & I was 8cm already. I wanted to go natural but I was in so much pain I gave in & went for the epidural again. I went to sleep for a few hours, woke up and decided it was time to start pushing. He fairly flew out-I only had to push for 10 min. Only one teeny tiny tear. Here’s the best part- he got a 10 on his apgar.
Quoth SoMoMom:
That’s a lot like what my Mom said about my delivery… The docs wanted her to lie on her back, but she kept on trying to get up, because she KNEW that she was supposed to be on her feet and squatting. As she put it, “I want to pull my carrots”… She’s a gardener, and apparently the posture for pulling carrots is much like that for giving birth. What I rather wonder, is if women have such strong instincts to give birth squatting (hey, it makes sense to me, too), and it’s so much easier that way, why, on God’s green Earth, do the doctors force you to lie down?
Because they’re stupid. 
That way the baby’s weight could help pull it out. But then you also have the problem of the mom not being to accessible of the doctors need to do something. Also, it’s not TOO long a fall to the floor when the kid pops out…
Since I’ve only given birth using pitocin I don’t know what they would have been like if I hadn’t. Maybe they would have let me be in whatever position I wanted. I think it depends on the dr.'s preference as to how much freedom the mom is given.
When they use pitocin they have to use an internal monitor because there is a slight risk of the contractions getting strong enough to harm the baby. They need to know the baby’s heartbeat every second and the contraction strength every time. External monitors are not exact enough. You can’t walk around with internal monitors because they could fall off/out. Since the baby’s monitor is actually attached to the skin of the head, that would not be a good thing. By the way, they would let me sit up in bed, thanks but no thanks. They actually put the epidural in that way the second time and I cussed the whole time. The nurses encouraged me to do whatever I felt comfortable with my legs. They didn’t disregard my urge to walk, they just wouldn’t let me out of bed.
Out of curiosity what is the protocol in these situations if a birth starts going seriously wrong and the complications are beyond the capacity of the midwife center to treat. Does the Doctor come to you? Do you get transferred to the doctor. What happens?
If you are delivering at home or at a birthing center and there are complications that the midwife is not trained to deal with you will be transported, via ambulance, to a hospital. Midwives only do homebirths with healthy, normal pregnancies. If you are high-risk, the free standing birthing centers won’t take you either. The laws vary from state-to-state, but midwives are generally very well trained and will have the equipment necessary for minor complications or to keep you (or the baby) safe during transport. For instance, they will have oxygen.
Also, why so anti-doctor consultation? I thought pregnancy was one of the most (relatively) dangerous things a woman could go through. I’m sure most midwives are good at what they do, but I would imagine (perhaps incorrectly), that a competent obstetricians range of knowledge re pregnancy problems and solutions would be considerably larger than a good midwives
If you have a complicated pregnancy, than an OB is probably your best bet. But the great majority of women do not have high-risk pregnancies. The greatest benefit, as I see it, to going with a midwife is that you are dealing with someone whose experience is in normal pregnancies. A midwife sees birth as a normal process. Doctors tend to look at it as a medical condition that needs to be monitored and controlled.
why, on God’s green Earth, do the doctors force you to lie down? This is just one of the many ways that doctors attempt to take control of the birthing process. If you are on your back, with your feet in stirrups, it is purely for the convenience of the doctor. It is the worst possible position in which to attempt to give birth. Many doctors will want to hook you up to an IV. It is more convenient for them to hook you up right away, but it makes it much more difficult for you to move around. Keeping the laboring mother in a bed is more convenient for an OB who is running back and forth between several births, despite the fact that lying down is likely to slow down your labor.