As a woman who almost had a baby at home and had her instead in an ambulance, I will say that education about childbirth had little to do with my experience. I have plenty of lay experience with childbirth – I took a labor class and had 4 previous normal births without coming close to delivering at home as well as 1 born via a cesarean section.
My last baby decided that she had to be not only unpredictable, but in a hurry, unlike all of my other children. My labor began uneventfully and, like most women who don’t want to spend untold hours in the hospital waiting for the big event, I chose to labor at home as long as possible. I was fine until suddenly things changed and I had no way to get myself to the hospital without calling an ambulance. Actually surprisingly no Hatzola members came to my house, although I do know that 2 Rebbes in my sons’ cheder across the street are Hatzola members and came to assist at other non-childbirth related medical emergencies in my house. I had precious little time to get transportation to my house to get to the hospital and fortunately I called an ambulance because I made it less than 5 minutes away from my house before I delivered the baby almost without assistance, considering that the MDA staff who was there with me had not assisted in a birth before. Well, I guess HKBH really delivered that baby!