Homebirth or hospital birth? Choose what’s right for you, but educate yourself first

Jessica Valenti: We don’t have to declare doctors monstrous in order to promote midwives. Both choices can and should be made as safe and acceptable as possible

Inflatable incubator aims to help save premature babies

Rebecca Smithers: A design graduate won this year’s James Dyson award for his low-cost inflatable incubator which aims to reduce infant mortality

Social impact: the top five stories of 2014

This year’s top social impact stories featured electric cars, breastfeeding versus baby formula and the lack of diversity in British Vogue

The Guardian view on home births: life’s initial journey

Editorial: The experts are smiling on new arrivals away from formal medical settings. It can be a capital idea – especially at this time of year

Symphysiotomy – Ireland’s brutal alternative to caesareans

Homa Khaleeli: Symphysiotomy has left many Irish mothers with serious long-term health problems. So did religious dogma trump the women’s best interests?

Should I have a home birth?

Studies show that, for healthy women, they are safe and, largely, free of complications. But the choice between home and hospital is still up to you

So the NHS is keen on home births? Well, it is cheaper…

Catherine Bennett: Home births and midwife-led units are put forward as the best options. But the NHS needs to make hospital deliveries a good and safe experience too

Childbirth is as awful as it is magical, thanks to our postnatal ‘care’

Marina Hyde: Giving birth in hospital these days is a hallucinatorily exhausting experience – and the cuts mean it’s about to get even worse

Call us, say midwives, as they back home birth advice

Midwives at St George’s hospital in London say outcomes are better for women giving birth in midwife-led centres and at home

Should pregnant women be encouraged to shun hospital labour wards?

Milli Hill, Ellie Gibson, Joseph Harker: Nice guidelines now suggest that 45% of births are unsuitable for hospital wards but does this chime with out writers’ experiences?