[mobertol]

Easy to be cynical -I've been in that position. I gave birth to my first son in Italy having lived in the country for a few months -I had no interpreter and had prepared myself by reading books in English from the National Childbirth trust. Luckily it was a textbook birth and all went well.

Unfortunately major population migration can lead to misunderstandings - customs are different between one population and another.

My current Gynae here in italy has told me that she is terrified of assisting births of non EU women as, apart from the language problem, many have no preparation and have never even had a scan. They arrive in A&E, ready to go, and the docs have to face emergency Breach births which are almost unheard of these days in european women because of technological advances. When things go wrong , as can happen in a percentage of cases, they face the circumstances and are held "to blame".