@AbrahamSolomon, people here are very similar to in the USA and live a similar average lifestyle. We aren't some mythical island paradise, we're another boring Western country eating Western junkfood and swallowing pills. Yes, there are some differences, but not ones that affect my comments about birth.
The biggest difference is around healthcare funding. We have a socialist healthcare system, while the USA has an insurance-based one. From your comments on expense, am I right in thinking that your insurance covers birth in a hospital, but does not cover hiring a midwife? Here both are covered. That is the biggest difference - just a financial one.
The other big difference is that US hospitals have much higher rates of birth complications than those in most other countries. Because of that, the US has one of the highest C-section rates in the Western world. Somehow the US medical profession is disastrous when it comes to births. Whatever the OBGYNs may say, statistically their hospitals are some of the worst in the world to birth in, causing problems and then having to solve them by cutting women open.
But that means there is a lot of money in it for the hospitals - because all those C-sections are covered by insurance. They probably get paid a lot more from the insurance company if they send the woman through to theatre than if they have a normal birth.
Nothing is what it seems on the surface.