Thank you so much for writing this--I only just now found it, so I apologise for being so veryvery late. I've been angsting over Fraser's birth date for ages.
A little birth FYI: 36 weeks is the cutoff for a birth to be considered full-term by most charts. The majority of midwives use 36 weeks as a screening date for home birth and won't attend births which happen before then.
A healthy, normal woman labouring at full term wouldn't require "medical" care, as normal childbirth isn't a medical event. A trained midwife (whether schooled or apprenticed or both) would be perfectly acceptable. Why Fraser was born in a barn, who can say, but it might not have been an emergency, just the warmest place or somewhere Caroline felt comfortable. Or maybe their home was a renovated barn? *shrugs*
FYI oh these many months later :)
A little birth FYI: 36 weeks is the cutoff for a birth to be considered full-term by most charts. The majority of midwives use 36 weeks as a screening date for home birth and won't attend births which happen before then.
A healthy, normal woman labouring at full term wouldn't require "medical" care, as normal childbirth isn't a medical event. A trained midwife (whether schooled or apprenticed or both) would be perfectly acceptable. Why Fraser was born in a barn, who can say, but it might not have been an emergency, just the warmest place or somewhere Caroline felt comfortable. Or maybe their home was a renovated barn? *shrugs*