I am in nursing school, and as part of my obstetrics clinical rotation, we visited a birth center. We also watched videos about home birth.
Birth centers are required to be within a certain amount of miles from a hospital. If there is an emergency, mother and child can be ambulanced to the hospital. The birth center that I visited, had a hospital about 10 minutes away. The atmosphere is very homelike. All the equipment is stored away until it is ready to be used. They have an isollete, a crash cart, and closets with supplies for IVs, and such. They do not have fetal monitoring. The good thing about birth centers are that they are very flexible and provide many options.
The care providors in birth centers are generally Certified Nurse Midwives (CNMs), advanced practice nurses with masters degrees who provide general OB/GYN services. CNMs are licensed to deal with low risk births only!!!!
Home births, in my opinion, are nice, but not safe.