pain, you go for pain relief. Really depends on the woman. Women aren't cats, they are quite capable of going to unfamiliar places and feeling at ease very rapidly. It's not like we all fall to bits if we go on holiday with adrenaline soaring through the roof. Some women will feel very stressed in a hospital because they have negative ideas about it (like they heard someone stereotyping all women and telling them they'll panic and have terrible labours if not in their houses, which everyone knows is the *natural habitat* of a woman :eyeroll:), other women would be very stressed at home as they'd feel they were far away from resources they might want and need in labour (pain relief, emergency caesareans etc). I've seen births in hospital go bad due to the wrong mindset (woman whose partner dumped her two weeks before the birth and she decided she didn't want it any more, attended no ante natal classes and her first words on arriving at the hospital were "I'm tired and can't do this") but I've also seen lots of them go wrong due to biological fuck ups that have nothing to do with how relaxed and comfortable you are in your own home. Shoulder dystocia due to excessive foetal size, cord prolapse and haemorrhage have nothing to do with how you feel or the attitude you've gone into labour with. I'm lucky enough to have a four year old who arrived safely into this world after