"I still think she was naive to ignore the consultant's advice. I'm glad she got away with it."
She wasn't naive and she didn't ignore the advice of the consultant. She listened and decided not to follow it. It was her right to do so. If none of us had questioned our right not to follow the recommendations of doctors we'd probably all still be having induction at term, giving birth flat on our backs, with our legs in stirrups and having routine elective episiotomies - all practices instigated by obstetricians.
"If the birth had been straightforward then why did the independent midwife transfer her to the hospital? I assume that the IM must have felt the mother and baby were at high risk."
Breech births do carry more risk than vaginal births, which is why the mother felt safer being in hospital. It doesn't logically follow that this mother was better off with a c-section once she got there.
"What is the point of going to the hospital if you aren't going to follow their advice?"
Because hospitals have protocols for treatment which don't necessarily take individual situations into account. One example of this might be that a hospital has a policy for blanket induction for post-dates at 40+10, another hospital may have a different policy of offering induction at 40+12. Mothers have to decide what's best for them based on their own individual circumstances after listening to the advice from health professionals. It's also true that there is not always a consensus among obstetricians about what is the best way forward with certain pregnancy conditions.
"Contray to popular belief obestric consultants aren't evil bastards desperate to cut up women"
No. I agree.
"Obestric consultants are experts when things go seriously wrong. Midwives are experts in normal healthy child birth."
Yes - and there are many, many midwives, including the primary expert on breech birth Mary Cronk, who see breech as a 'variation of the norm'. There are midwives with good experience of breech birth who feel very strongly that if a labour with a breech baby progresses normally and well and then breech birth can be safe. I was not talking about a birth where things had gone terribly wrong - I was talking about someone who was having a labour where things were progressing very well.