[JoannaV]

Originally Posted by CelticJourney

How common are they and how much are they recognized in society as part of the 'norm'?

Re UK, which is where I was born/grew up:
National statistics show annual rate varying between 2.1% and 2.9%, depending on the year.
30 years ago I was born in the hospital because my mum's GP sort of discouraged her from home birth (like, eh I'd rather you didn't, especially for your first birth). But she gave birth to my sister at home in 1997. The midwife was awesome, and there was a student midwife with her too.
So I'm used to home birth being normal, obviously it's actually pretty uncommon. But my impression is that it's not too out there. My school friend's sister wanted a home birth, some other person from school wanted one. Medically they may have not worked out, but that shows the desire/interest is greater than the 2%. I've also noticed that some friends who seemed very medically minded at the time I gave birth were much more natural by the time they gave birth, part of which seemed down to the info they received from their midwives. So home birth might have seemed odd when they were 20, but, even if it still wasn't their cup of tea, it seemed much less odd after they'd been through a pregnancy themselves.
I tried to find county rates and couldn't, but I did find that my region, South West, had the highest rate in England & Wales! North East was lowest. Scotland is even lower, less than 1%.