Robin, Wow, so did I, although I wouldn't have thought of calling it a BBA. I was booked for a home birth but my husband delivered the baby with a phone in one hand. It all went pear shaped when we phoned maternity control to tell the midwife my contractions were 5mins apart and getting business like. The midwife was already at another home birth and the second (and only other) midwife on duty was on the other side of the city with a river to cross to get to me. Husband started to get edgy and once I got the urge to push went into headless chicken mode. Between contractions I told him to phone again. More panic. Finally, in desperation I yelled "Well, call an ambulance then!" They arrived after the baby (by about 5 minutes and told us they took only 7 minutes to get to us) but Control did an excellent job of getting dh focused on being midwife. My point is that I don't think we were premature in calling them. The midwife arrived about 2 minutes after that. I totally agree with the person who said that some of the problem lies with the perception of birth as a big emergency. My husband was in a blind panic - he was convinced that the lives of his wife and baby were in his hands. If I hadn't been so busy I would have told him to go next door and have a cup of tea, but I suppose the fact that I fought so hard for a home birth meant that I was already predisposed to view childbirth as a normal life event with only the potential (rather than the certainty) of going wrong. Incidentally, only two hours before the birth I had been visited by my community midwife and she witnessed a couple of contractions and told me I had hours to go yet, whilst assuring my husband the midwife would arrive in plenty of time and there was no chance of him having to deliver the baby. The proper maternataxi idea might well work simply because midwives take a much more robust line and don't mind/are allowed to turn people away if they think it's too soon.