On The Term "Normal Birth"

I don't love the term "normal birth." And yet it's difficult to find an alternative when you're trying to find a way to say "birth that isn't complicated by unnecessary medical interventions."

This is what I wrote to a reader today, who took offense to my use of the term in a column I was writing about the future of birth.

"Normal" bir th is a loaded term, I agree. Someone needs to come up with a term that doesn't push people's buttons, but that gets across the point that it shouldn't be "normal" for all kinds of high-tech interventions to have become routine, because not every woman needs them. (That's what the people who coined the term "normal birth" are trying to say.)

What language would you prefer that gets the same point across? "Natural" has different connotations again.

It's a tough one, isn't it?