The demand for home births is increasing but many parents are quietly being put off having one because midwives are too stretched to provide home care, according to figures from the National Childbirth Trust published today.

There were 15,918 home births in the UK in 2004 out of a total of 710,023 births, according to figures compiled by BirthChoiceUK website for the NCT. This represented an increase from the previous year of 6.1% in England, 18.1% in Northern Ireland, 12.4% in Scotland and 16.2% in Wales, where the assembly has set a target for 10% of all births to take place at home by next year. But the rate of home births varied according to where you live. One in seven births in west Somerset were at home compared with one in 200 in Middlesbrough and Coventry.

The government wants all women to be offered the choice of a home birth but the report suggests that in areas where maternity services are stretched the option is often not discussed. Parents are discouraged from thinking they should have a baby without access to the pain relief provided in hospitals, the NCT said.

The increase in home births despite the pressures on maternity services was a sign of the strong desire of women to give birth at home, Mary Newburn, head of policy at the NCT, said. "The modest increase in home births is a move in the right direction, but not a sufficient change to mean that government policy is being implemented," she said. The survey came as one authority said it was suspending its home birth service because of a lack of staff. The United Lincolnshire hospitals NHS trust cancelled home births from Monday while it tries to recruit midwives.