Independent midwives - paid for privately by parents to allow them to give birth at home - are under threat because they lack professional indemnity insurance to cover them if things go wrong. This lack of insurance can have disastrous consequences. Channel 4 News has spoken to one couple who were left with no redress when a botched and traumatic birth left their child with serious nerve damage to her arm. 

Up until 1994 independent midwives were covered, indemnified by the Royal College of Midwives. When that cover was withdrawn they were forced into paying massive premiums. But now no insurance company will touch them.

With a national shortage of NHS midwives and huge cutbacks in maternity units, more and more women are turning to home births and independent midwives. But the question remains how well protected mothers and, even more importantly, babies are if something does go wrong. More details…