Their numbers are growing slowly but less than one per cent of Britain's midwives are men. Women's Editor Christen Pears talks to North Yorkshire's only male midwife.

DAVE Campbell is not a typical midwife - for a start, he's a man. He's also an ex-Army staff sergeant, who spent 15 years serving in notoriously tough locations across the globe, including Northern Ireland.

His military background has given him a tough, no-nonsense demeanour so it may come as a surprise to find him on the labour ward at Northallerton's Friarage Hospital, delivering babies or talking to new mums about breastfeeding.

"People automatically assume that all midwives are women and I think it comes as a bit of a shock to some of them when they realise that men do it as well," he says. "I get all the usual jokes about being a 'midman' or a 'midperson' but you get used to that and you learn to ignore it after a while."

Britain has been training male midwives since 1977. Their numbers have risen steadily over the years but in 2000, just 93 of the 34,000 registered midwives were men.

"It's a difficult path to tread as a bloke and you have to be determined to get there, " says Dave. "You are on the same salary scale as nurses but you have more clinical responsibility and probably less public acceptance. You're also working in a female-dominated environment and that's always going to be hard.

"Men account for under half a per cent of midwives. I'll be retiring in ten years' time and I don't expect it to be higher than one per cent by then."

Dave was working as a military accountant at Catterick when he decided on a complete career change. He started nurse training in 1989, not knowing what he wanted to specialise in when he finished.

"It was the right time for me to leave the Army. I knew I wanted to be a nurse but, like a lot of people, I didn't know where it was going to lead. I just wanted to get the qualification.

"During my first year as a student nurse, I spent a week on the labour ward. I saw my first baby being born and, straight afterwards, went down to the midwifery department and told them I wanted to be a midwife. They said they'd never trained a man before so I told them it was about time they did."

The softly-spoken Scot breaks into an involuntary smile as he describes the thrill of bringing new life into the world.

"Seeing a baby being born is the most amazing thing. I often say to people that I think I probably have the best job in the world. It's a very privileged position to be there when new life comes into the world."

Dave was the first man to train as a midwife at St James' Hospital in Leeds and he qualified in 1995. Soon afterwards, he moved to the Friarage - another first. He is still the only male midwife but says he gets on famously with his colleagues.

"They just treat me as one of the girls now. I have to sit through hours and hours of gossip and talk about period pains but I think that's a good thing. I just think of myself as a midwife and that's how my colleagues regard me. I'm sure that's how my clients regard me as well."

Perhaps understandably, he still gets a few raised eyebrows from mums-to-be but most of them come to accept him.

"When that happens, you just get on with it. Once they get past that initial stumbling block, the feedback I've had has generally been very positive. Sometimes I get ladies coming in and asking specially for me."

There are, however, some women who feel too uncomfortable to allow him to attend them. He says he can understand how they feel but he has no time for those who say he can't do the job as well as a woman.

"There are always going to be people who think that you can't know what it's like because you haven't had a baby but I used to work in a coronary care unit and I'd never had a heart attack. You need to be able to deal compassionately with people but you don't need to have been through it."

In fact, Dave doesn't even have children of his own. "Not for me," he laughs. "I like leaving them there at the end of the day. My four cats are more than enough!"

The public image of a midwife is probably still of a kindly, middle-aged woman, carrying a big black bag and driving a Morris Minor, but midwifery has changed dramatically since a review of maternity services in 1993. The profession now requires degree level entry and there is a high level of clinical responsibility.

"It is a stressful job. The public's conception is that we go to work and cuddle babies all day - if only. We have far more autonomy as a midwife than a nurse, for example, in terms of the drugs we can give and the clinical decisions we can make. You are responsible for two people's lives - the mother and the baby."

And in the delivery room, Dave is particularly keen to make sure the father is fully involved. "A lot of people forget the father and I think I bring a male perspective," he says. "From a man's point of view, the labour ward can be a daunting place. Your partner is in pain and you can't do anything about it. You probably don't know what's going on. I have had quite a lot of dads say to me they were quite pleased there was another bloke there and that alone is quite rewarding."

Dave clearly loves his job but he is the first to admit it took a lot of dedication for him to succeed.

"I knew it wasn't going to be a particularly easy but if you want something badly enough, you go for it, and I definitely have no regrets."