Knoxville blogger Katie Allison Granju learns why a hospital won't let her use a birthing ball. Women's Health News quotes the following apt observation: "Instead of simply risk-managing the things that might help women in labour, surely what we really need to address is the culture of fear and litigation which has somehow enshrouded pregnancy and birth, and the ways in which we can break this down, for the sake of everybody concerned." (via KevinMD). More on midwives and midwifery here and here.