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This section deals with the marriage between midwifery and the law. It is a relationship personified within the Flint household. Giles Flint is a lawyer and his knowledge has been a resource Caroline has made effective use of on many occasions. Another lawyer friendly to midwifery is Ronald Briggs, who after writing a letter to The Times deploring the treatment of Jilly Rosser, was contacted by Caroline, became persuaded of the merits of the case for a new Midwives Act and became instrumental in drawing up the draft act mentioned in `Why Do Midwives want a new Act?'. Such networking can prove invaluable and lead to not very obvious but worthwhile courses of action, such as the Association of Radical Midwives (ARM) petitioning of the Lord Chancellor regarding the Professional Conduct Rules of the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (UKCC), ('Juno Lucina, March 1989'). The Professional Conduct machinery has subsequently been reformed in line with many of the suggestions put forward by ARM. As many of these articles make clear, Caroline believes that knowing the system, or knowing someone who does, is essential for midwives' empowerment. That belief also leads Caroline to acquire and assiduously comment on any report or proposal that may be relevant to midwifery. The purpose of a number of these articles is to bring such reports to the attention of midwives and to try to encourage them to read and respond to them (`Getting it Right for Mother and Baby', `A Mother's Birthright' and `Rules for Midwives'). It may have been a slight exaggeration to suggest that `midwives are meeting throughout the country to discuss the proposed rules sent out for consultation' (`Rules for Midwives') but Caroline has always made sure that any group of midwives that she has anything to do with get their two penny worth of comments sent in. As the branch secretary or chairperson of the Southern Thames Branch of the RCM for 15 years, she has socialized many dozens of midwives into this somewhat unusual habit. Caroline's articles on the Short Report (`Getting it Right for Mother and Baby') and Maternity Care in Action Part 2 (`A Mother's Birthright') contain spirited defences of home birth. Her conviction that the crude statistics did not do justice to homebirth in terms of safety has been confirmed by the work of Marjorie Tew (1990). Caroline had all three of her children at home long before she qualified as a midwife (she did the old Part I immediately before her marriage and did not return to nursing or midwifery for 12 years). These extremely happy experiences, particularly the birth of her eldest child, have underpinned her beliefs and practice and made her active in the defence and promotion of homebirth. This zeal, shared by a growing minority remains largely incomprehensible to most of those with no first-hand experience of modern homebirth. Furthermore, homebirth has come to symbolize a model of childbirth that is at odds with the technical model associated with hospitalized birth. This much analysed and discussed dichotomy is at the root of many of the issues raised in the articles in this section, namely those which pertain to the Supervision of Midwives. During the 1980s a growing number of midwives faced disciplinary action and even suspension from practice. Many of these midwives were `radical' midwives and/or committed to homebirth and/or in independent practice. A large proportion also happened to be Caroline's personal friends and she used her regular columns in the professional press to argue in their defence and to expose the mess that too many midwifery managers were making of Supervision. The most drawn out case was that of Jilly Rosser for whom there was no `guide, counsellor and friend' following a client's postnatal collapse at home. Her interrogation by the Professional Conduct Committee of the UKCC was the final nail in the coffin of many midwives' waning belief in the ability of the profession to deal with its members fairly. `The Golden Thread', written for the Association of Radical Midwives Magazine, was penned in response to the predicament Caroline found herself in as a result of `Postpartum Haemorrhage at Home' (see Section Three). She was the most fed up with midwifery that she has probably ever been. The remaining articles on the Supervision of midwifery and professional disciplinary procedures have two overriding messages: midwifery supervision has presupposed an outmoded model of midwifery and has failed to adapt to different ways of delivering care and the definitions of normality on which the Midwives Rules and Code of Practice depend are narrow and restricting. Whilst some progress may have been made with the first, the second issue remains one of the most crucial for midwives and women. Three articles in this section argue the case for a new Midwives Act.
The campaign for new and separate legislation arose directly from the
decision, in 1989, of the English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery
and Health Visiting in favour of generic education officers (though discontent
with the statutory framework had been brewing for some time). Caroline
was active in the Midwives Legislation Group which successfully raised
awareness of the issues not only in midwifery but also amongst doctors
and lay groups. The drive for a new act failed however to galvanize the
essential support of the Royal College of Midwives. The Commission mentioned
in `Why do Midwives want a New Act? effectively shackled the College to
a short-term pragmatism instead of a long-term strategy. In 1994, this
pragmatism gained the upper hand when the RCM conference voted against
campaigning for a new midwives act, thereby overturning the motion passed
in 1990. Meanwhile the Midwives Legislation Group watches and waits. Reference Tew, M. (1990). Safer Childbirth? A Critical History of Maternity Care. London: Chapman and Hall.
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