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　　On the show today a report on an old and newlypopular birthing practice.

　　We also hear some great jazz from the past broughtto new life in a Broadway musical.

　　Home Births in the US Becoming More Common

　　Most births in the United States take place inhospitals. Women giving birth are under the care of doctors, armed with modern drugs andequipment. About one in three babies arrive through a surgical operation called a Caesareansection. However, a growing number of parents-to be are choosing a different way. SteveEmber reports.

　　Emilie Jacobs and her husband, Rowan Finnegan, are preparing to welcome their second child.The baby will be born at their home --- just like their first child, 22-month-old Elias. The samenurse-midwife will help with this birth, too. If all goes well it will be a peaceful birth, withoutmedicine, high tech machinery or surgery.

　　"And then after giving birth, straight into my own shower, into my own bed, with our new familyand our home. There's just...there's just nothing like that."

　　Emilie Jacobs attended medical school, so she has attended hospital births. She thinks doctorsconsider hospital rules and possible legal risks in administering birth care more than the needsof the women they serve.

　　"It's not an illness to be pregnant, it's a beautiful experience, and if you feel supported andhave the right kind of support, to labor and give birth in your own home is such a gift."

　　Home births have risen sharply in recent years. There are now about 30,000 such deliveriesacross the country each year. However, that number still represents less than one percent of allU.S. births.

　　A 2008 documentary, "The Business of Being Born," helped increase the popularity of homebirths. The documentary included film of untroubled births in homes, including some in warmwater. Other supporters of home birth have spread the idea with video of their water birthswith midwives assisting.

　　Critics disagree about the safety of home births. One study found that babies born at homeare ten times likelier to born dead. The study found that they are also four times more likely tohave serious neurological problems.

　　The findings were reported in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Study co-author Dr. Jack Chervenak is with the New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

　　"We here on our labor and delivery unit fight for seconds when an unexpected fetal distressoccurs, we do drills, so that we plan an emergency Caesarean and fight for seconds. If someoneis as much as one block away from this hospital, it's too far."

　　But others say the study had problems. Tina Johnson is with the American College of NurseMidwives.

　　"He used a lot of flawed data and drew a lot of conclusions that are inconsistent with all of theother research that's out there currently, including another recent AJOG article, that came outmore recently, citing that planned home births, with certified nurse-midwives, outcomes are justas safe as midwifery deliveries in the hospital."

　　Writer Jennifer Block agrees. She says women are choosing home birth for the baby's health aswell their own.

　　"Because if the mother has a spontaneous vaginal birth, that's absolutely the best-casescenario for a baby. We know babies benefit from vaginal birth: their lungs, their respiratoryhealth, their gut health: they are colonized with good bacteria."

　　And Ms. Block notes that the experience is very different in Western Europe and some othercountries. In those areas, midwives care for healthy pregnant women and send them to doctorsonly if there are problems or known risks.

　　Broadway Show Honors Music of the Cotton Club

　　The Cotton Club in New York City helped bring fame to many African-American performersduring the early 1920s to the 1940s. Now, a new musical play celebrates some of the greatestjazz musicians who played there. Bob Doughty has more on the show "After Midnight."

　　Two men partnered to create "After Midnight." Wynton Marsalis is the artistic director of Jazzat Lincoln Center in New York City. His friend Jack Viertel is the director of a company thatbrings old musicals back to life in new shows. Their shared love of the music of this time gavebirth to "After Midnight."

　　The Cotton Club was in the Harlem neighborhood of the city. David Levering Lewis is a historyprofessor at New York University and writer of the book "When Harlem Was In Vogue." He says"After Midnight" shows what one night at the famous nightclub was really like.

　　"I thought it captured the flavor of what would have been one night - the best ever - at theCotton Club."

　　Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Bessie Smith are just some of the musicians re-created in"After Midnight." Mr. Viertel and Mr. Marsalis used old sound recordings from the Cotton Club tore-create what it was really like.

　　"Hello Everybody! Welcome to our famous Cotton Club. It's great to see so many friends heretonight, enjoying themselves in spite of the cover charge. If you can spare a minute from yourmerry making, I'd like to have the pleasure of introducing the greatest living master of junglemusic, the rip-roaring harmony hound, none other than Duke Ellington!"

　　But there is an ugly side to the history. The Cotton Club was located in the center of theAfrican-American neighborhood of Harlem. The club used black performers. But the club onlypermitted white people to attend the shows.

　　Mr. Lewis describes how even the celebrated composer W.C. Handy was not permitted toenter.

　　"As everyone knows, it was infamously racially-exclusive. W.C. Handy wished to go oneevening to The Cotton Club and he was turned away. And he could hear his music beingperformed!"

　　Cotton Club shows often presented African-Americans in insulting ways. But this is notexplored in "After Midnight." Mr. Viertel says the creators wanted to free the music from itspast.