I gave birth to my second daughter at home with a cast of what felt like thousands. There were two grandmothers, two best friends, my husband, my eldest daughter, my sister (who was my doula – someone who supports a woman during the birth process) and two midwives. I was glad of the homely feeling of having them all at hand should I need them – but I most definitely did not want them in the room with me while I actually gave birth.

While pregnant, I had spent some time studying to be a doula myself with the obstetrician and childbirth specialist Michel Odent, and my husband had soaked up some of his lessons too. Odent encourages women to surrender to the circumstances that will both allow our womb to contract and open, and allow the production of oxytocin, the hormone that aids birth. These circumstances involve privacy, quiet, safety, darkness, non-judgment, being unwatched and feeling loved. On this basis, my husband kicked the crowd of people out of our living room, including the midwife (who went happily, as a big fan of Odent herself). The majority of the birth then happened with just me and my husband in the room while my family and friends sat on the stairs outside our living room – the midwife at the bottom, in easy proximity, and my maternal grandmother at the top.

This week it was reported that a survey of 2,000 women – admittedly a survey by a video blogging site, Channel Mum, rather than a more official source – showed that women in their teens and twenties now have an average of eight people in the room during the course of giving birth. The phenomenon is being referred to as “crowdbirthing” and is a big change from the days when my mother gave birth to me without a single soul she knew in the room. Back then, that wasn’t untypical. Women who are now in their sixties often gave birth with just a midwife in attendance.

So is crowdbirthing a good idea? Will you benefit from having an audience? It’s worth bearing in mind that oxytocin also needs to be produced in high amounts for sex and orgasm. So perhaps it’s worth asking these key questions. Would you really have your best sexual experience with your mum in the room? With the door open? With someone else popping in to take your pulse? The lights on? Mother-in-law chatting in the corner? For most people, I would guess, the answer is no. So why are we now inviting in more and more physical and virtual cast members to our births?

We live in a world of increasing cuts and stressed-out NHS staff – many women report being left alone for a considerable time during labour, an experience that can be frightening and demoralising, so there’s no doubt extra support, love and care is often welcome, and even necessary. Some women report bullying, coercion and neglect in their experience of giving birth, so we also clearly need the protection of friends and family in some cases.

I work as a doula now and often support second-time parents who were either left alone or treated badly during the first birth, and who are determined not to experience that again. I’m happy when a woman has friends and family around during her birth – you can never have too much love and practical help. But I am not happy if they are not supporting her and taking good care of her birth space. There’s nothing like having your mum around when you are vomiting; your partner if you are scared; your sister if you want to divulge an irrational fear or secret; your best friend if you just want to be listened to honestly when you say you can’t manage. This is a hard job for any midwife or partner to be able to do alone – perhaps impossible.

When the birth space is looked after, then, having a number of people in the room can work. But not if they’re live tweeting the birth – the Channel Mum survey also found that almost a quarter of women now share their experience of birth on social media. My real concern with this lies with the need to perform. In the internet age, we have a real life and a virtual life. Online, we tell the world about our fabulous cocktail, successes, sun tan, new shoes and sometimes might just pause to complain about a traffic warden. We do not spill about the spot on our bottom, our divorce, the bailiffs and our cystitis. Birth can involve beautifully lit pictures by birth photographers, doulas massaging our backs by candle light, and other such internet-ready happenings – but it also involves cervical mucous, emptying the bowels as the baby comes out, cuts and stitches to our genitals, vomiting and sometimes orgasms too. Yes, we need to spread the word about the reality of women’s bodies, but do we really need someone on Facebook, who bullied us at school, telling us that if we’d had a homebirth we wouldn’t have needed an episiotomy?

What it boils down to is this: careful choice. We need to be careful about who we invite into the birthing room, and this choice should be left to those who should ultimately be making all the decisions – the prospective mothers.