Birthing experiences

I personally have not had the privilege of giving birth yet in my life, I have not been able to participate in any and obviously do not remember my own. I asked a friend about her birthing experience and the following is what she said;
Kathyrn gave birth to twins on Oct. 9, 2005. She had already been through two births, having two older boys. She said that when she gave birth to the twins that it was a whole different experience. The twins took much longer to arrive than the other children did. Kathryn said that the labor pains seemed about the same as far as how much it hurt, she said that it just seemed to take much longer. Her new baby boy Jaden arrived first. He was healthy and had no complications, roughly 7 minutes later Asia arrive and had given the Dr.'s cause for concern. She was so big that they were afraid they would have to open Kathryn up at the last min. and get Asia that way. (thankfully they did not).
I chose this example because I think that it is interesting to hear people talk about how the first child or the last child was either harder or easier to give birth to. Kathryn now has 4 beautiful children, and even after all the modern medication and advances, I am still not ready to deal with the pain that I have heard so many women describe.
I have heard many people discuss how they gave birth but if I had to chose today how I would do it, I am not sure. I suppose I would chose to go to a hospital. An at home birth frightens me and the under water birth does too. I would be afraid something would go wrong and the child would get hurt.
I chose to talk about Japan in the birthing experience. I instant messaged my old host family and asked about their traditions from Japan. She told me that the majority of Japanese women give birth in a hospital setting much like the U.S. She said that there is a percentage of women who still work the field and live in the old country that give birth at home, but that percentage is small. My host mother also told me that many women do not allow the man to be present during the birth, in the old country, that is something for only other women to assist with. I found that odd. i would personally want my significant other present.
As far as I can see the two I have spoken about above may not have that much different in the impact of the development of the child. The Japanese are also a modern country like us and have much higher rating when it comes to schools scores, etc... So the impact of birth in these two countries I am not sure affects the child, it is probably more of the way the children are taught and brought up.