Hoorah! Don't you just love a good BBA. Agree with you about the midwife/emergency thing. We aren't allowed to speed (even down an empty road at 3am) because we aren't an emergency service. We don't get ambulanced to precipitate homebirths because we aren't emergency enough. Yet even the most newly qualifieds of newly qualifieds would know what to do with a breech baby at home or a shoulder dystocia (and NOBODY will convince me you could get her into hospital in time if that head is born) or a PPH or a cord prolapse. Dunno what sort of training you get as EMS for these things, but I have heard about a few cases recently where midwives have requested a paramedic ambulance and stated why, and only technicians have turned up... not quite what was asked for. It's the flip side of control making something worse than it is I guess, them making it less than it is (and a birth can go very wrong very quickly and we can't predict which ones that will be in a lot of cases). So I guess what I am saying is that we need more teamwork with EMS. Oh, and we had a lovely ambulance man come and work on our unit, he was so nice and I would have him catch my baby any day. Liz, have a look at www.studentmidwives.co.uk forum. Claire Nearly Midwife