Top midwife in discipline case

Caroline Flint, the radical independent midwife who became the first elected president of the Royal College of Midwives, is facing a disciplinary body today on seven charges of professional misconduct relating to a baby girl she delivered who died.

The parents had wanted a home birth, but because of the breech position of the baby the mother had to be transferred to hospital.

Ms Flint is accused of failing to give the parents sufficient information that might have led the mother to have extra scans during the pregnancy and possibly opt for a caesarian delivery, failing to monitor mother and child properly, failing to get the help of a doctor when it was needed, and keeping inadequate notes.

The baby girl died soon after she was born at Chelsea and Westminster hospital in west London in 1995. It is believed she was starved of oxygen, probably even before the mother, herself a midwife, went into labour. The mother, who will be referred to as Mrs A during the hearings brought by the United Kingdom Central Council for nurses, health visitors and midwives, required emergency surgery.

Ms Flint, who founded the first private birth centre in this country, where women can have babies as if at home, links the case against her to two well-publicised cases against prominent independent midwives in Ireland and in France, which are coincidentally to be heard today and tomorrow.

She and high-profile supporters, such as the childbirth specialist Sheila Kitzinger, point to persistent opposition to home births.

Ms Flint claims that she, Ann Kelly in Dublin and Suzanne de Bearn in the Dordogne are all under attack by a medical establishment that refuses to believe birth can be safe unless it is in a medical setting where obstetricians and hi-tech equipment are at the ready.

In neither the Kelly nor the De Bearn cases is it alleged that babies were harmed, only that they might have been. The claim is that both women, senior independent midwives, effectively take risks by not working in a medical setting.

Ms Kelly, 65, is accused by senior maternity hospital officials of delaying the transfer to hospital of women in labour when complications set in. She has been suspended from practising by the Irish high court for two years pending the fitness to practice hearing beginning today.

Ms de Bearn, 84, is fighting the closure of the Ste-Therese maternity centre in Sarlat, which she founded and which is the only non-hospital birth centre in France. French law dictates that any maternity unit requires facilities for surgery and a full-time pediatrician, anaesthetist and obstetrician as well as midwife.

Ms Flint, 57, argues that she has been cleared by two investigations, although reprimanded over record-keeping.

This week, she alleges, 'threatens to be the night of the long knives for pioneers within the profession'. The three women 'are all being tried by their own profession as dangers to the public'.

At the hearing, the couple will allege that Ms Flint did not check on the baby's heartbeat often enough. It is understood they will say they realised only after the successful birth of their second child, also a breech delivery, that there should have been far more checks during the first pregnancy and continuous monitoring during labour.

It is understood they believe the care was not good enough. The baby might have died anyway, but they do not know.

Friends said the couple were worried about being portrayed as out for vengeance, which was not the case. For a long time they believed Ms Flint 'was wonderful', and only the birth of the second child persuaded them to complain.

Ms Flint, who has been an inspiration to many, points to her exemplary record, but she is a controversial figure. During her year as president of the royal college, there were serious clashes and a failed attempt to oust her.

She believes that some in the establishment are out to get her, but the difference between her case and those of Ms Kelly and Ms de Bearn is that a baby died and there are serious charges to answer.