Mrs Wright now claims that she did not immediately hold Flint responsible for her terrible experience. It was only when she was delivering her second child, who was also in breech, that she "was made aware of the information she should have been given" when deciding how to deliver Alicia.But surely, as a midwife, she would have been aware of these risks already?A few more questions: how important was it to her to have a "natural" birth? Why was it that important? How much did Mrs Wright's own views on natural childbirth as a midwife enter into the decision she made that day as a mother? Did she, like so many mothers I know, dread the thought of a Caesarean because it would be a win for the medical establishment, and so a personal defeat? Might she have been able to make a "more informed" decision had her understanding of the decision been less politicised?This is a private tragedy, but it is cause for public concern, too, as it casts light on a turf war between midwives and the medical establishment that puts all mothers at risk, and therefore all babies.A quick history lesson: this war has been going on for more than a century, and it has played itself out differently in different countries. In the US, for example, doctors are the big winners and midwives have little or no autonomy. Here, midwives have won enough ground so that it is normal for a woman to go through labour without once seeing a doctor.But it's not just control that midwives in this country have campaigned for: it's a different way of giving birth.

The word "natural" is perhaps misleading: the key idea is to put the mother as much as possible in charge of the process. Not just so that she'll have a positive experience on the day, but also so that she'll get off to a good start in that job for life.If the medical establishment is slightly warmer to this humane and far- sighted approach than it used to be, this is as a direct result of 30 years of lobbying by organisations like the National Childbirth Trust and the Maternity Alliance, and high- profile campaigning by the likes of Sheila Kitzinger and Caroline Flint.But there are no winners in this campaign. The midwives are constantly losing ground and then having to fight, and hard, to win it back. Many excellent midwife schemes have been chopped by the NHS Trust bottom-line men over the past few years; many more are under threat. So it is hardly surprising that some supporters of Caroline Flint feel this disciplinary hearing is itself part of a backlash against natural childbirth.And as far as that big battle is concerned, I'm on her side.

There is nothing better than a birth managed by a good, responsive midwife. If you have had a chance to get to know her beforehand, and if you are in a hospital where doctors and midwives work together harmoniously, you and your baby could not be in safer hands.But compare that with the one I found myself in exactly 16 years ago, in El Paso, Texas. My daughter almost died because a proponent of natural childbirth (in this case, a doctor) was so keen to keep me out of the clutches of her "medical model" colleagues that she put off scheduling a Caesarean section for nine hours.She waged her courageous battle with her political enemies over the telephone. Had she bothered to consult me - had anyone bothered to give me the facts - I could have told her that even though I had chosen her as a doctor because I wanted a natural birth, my ultimate goal was not to avoid surgery but to give birth to a healthy child.In the end, I did - but only just. My daughter survived many unnecessary hours of foetal distress because she was strong. Had she suffered from an episode of hypoxia just prior to labour, it might have been a different story. I find I can no longer be dispassionate on the subject of bungled births.In the case for which Caroline Flint was before a tribunal, it seems the politics of childbirth entered too much into the process.