Muscle contraction around head, ears leads to risky response - midwife is marvellous! (8)
I believe the answer is:
terrific
'is marvellous' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'muscle contraction around head ears leads to risky response midwife' is the wordplay.
'muscle contraction' becomes 'tic' (I've seen this in another clue).
'around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'head' says to take the initial letters.
'leads to' says to take the initial letters.
'midwife' becomes 'if' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
The first letter of 'ears' is 'e'.
The first letters of 'risky response' is 'rr'.
'e'+'rr'+'if'='errif'
'tic' enclosing 'errif' is 'TERRIFIC'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for terrific that I've seen before include "Huge" , "wicked" , "frightening" , "Very intense" , "Extraordinarily great or good" .)