PA
Diana Warwick has been given the tag "Britain's Worst Midwife" after she dropped a baby on its head and nearly electrocuted a woman who was giving birth, in a series of terrifying blunders.
On another occasion Warwick sprayed a bed-bound patient's deodorant on to her armpits and polished her shoes with body wipes.
The 56 year-old midwife faces being struck off or suspended after she was found guilty of 30 allegations of misconduct and could be struck off today.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council heard Warwick had been pushing a baby along in a cot when it fell out, landing face down.
She also risked electrocuting a woman in a birthing pool by using equipment to monitor the baby's heartbeat that was plugged in at the mains socket.
The series of blunders occurred between May 2005 and April 2006 while Warwick was working at West Cumberland Hospital, near Whitehaven in Cumbria.
Warwick claimed she was distracted by her mother's illness at the time of the incidents, but the professional nurses body said the blunders were the result of "carelessness".
The midwife was also branded "tactless" and "thoughtless".
Andrew Coleman, NMC panel chairman, said: "We have heard that Miss Warwick was pushing a baby on its cot on a metal frame.
"As she approached a door she pulled the cot inside the metal frame and it slipped up and off the frame. Part of the cot fell on the floor and the baby fell flat down on its face.
"The panel accepts the cause of the accident was carelessness."
Warwick became a midwife in 1993 but took a lengthy break from her career and failed to take a return to practice course.
Speaking on behalf of the NMC at the fitness to practise hearing, Salim Hafejee said: "The failings go beyond simply the lack of clinical care.
"There were failures around attitude and understanding and of concepts of care. Tactlessness, thoughtlessness and carelessness are all words which would fit very well."