Here in Oxford, UK, both the above are available in the same hospital - we could choose what we wanted. Is that not normal elsewhere?

This is available in the US, but you make the choice based on the facility, typically. You can have the more medicalized experience at a hospital, or you can do home birth and hire a doula to assist, or you can go to a birthing center, which is sort of an in-between but more intimate atmosphere than a hospital. Usually the birthing center will be close enough to a real hospital to intervene if something goes wrong during the birth.

Which of these options does medical insurance cover?

My wife has had kids in all these settings, except the home birth was through the same provider as the birthing center. All of them were covered by insurance, except the birthing center is out of network. There’s an in-network one the next city over.

(This is a perfectly ordinary HDHP/HSA plan through a large company that you’ve heard of.)

Squat birthing is a nice idea, but you have to look at the evidence, it's good for some things and maybe not great for other things like cesarean (RR 2.26 in this meta analysis)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030121152...

> conclusion: The available evidence does not show the squatting position during childbirth to be beneficial. As there is no evidence for or against squatting, women should be able to choose the position they prefer.

I would also recommend to let the soon-to-be-mother decide how she feels about squatting? You don't read evidence what's the best positure for shitting when you need to shit like hell. I promise you will take up the best positure for your shit.

Also there is more to childbirth than a new life as there is an already existing life it very much affect - the one who's giving birth and I see no such consideration in the linked evidence.

Sure, patient (mother) gets to make decisions about what treatments they want, clinician advises them on the pros/cons of each option. Just pointing out squat birthing isn't the panacea some people paint it as.

The study wasn't about the mental well being of the mother & birthing method, I'm sure you can find some literature on that (but it's not a valid criticism of the study methods).