Joyce Fegan: Women 'go private' because they don't trust the maternity system

At a 30-week antenatal visit with my lifelong GP, we got to discussing home births and hospital births. This much-loved man, whom a great deal of people trust with their life, paused his obstetric duties to say the following words: "Of all the journeys we take in life, the one through the birth canal is the most uncertain."

If you have a planned pregnancy, as soon as your period is even a whisper of a day late, the next thing on most women's minds is the safe delivery of their much-wanted baby.

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