Having a baby should be a time of joy. Yet financial cutbacks and shortages of midwives are filling mums-to-be with anxiety and alarm. Two weeks ago, a friend of mine gave birth to her first baby, after three days in labour and an emergency caesarean. Thankfully, both mother and baby are alive and well. But no woman should have to go through this nightmare ordeal.
The baby was nearly three weeks overdue so the birth had to be induced – a procedure that often results in a longer labour. In addition, the mother was 41 years old, so her womb muscles were less strong than a younger woman’s – another reason for a sluggish labour. Third, it was her first baby, when labour is notoriously slower. Yet, despite these warning signs, there were not enough midwives or doctors or beds to provide the best of care. Her labour was allowed to continue until it was dangerous to let it go on any longer. She describes the birth as “high drama”, as medics rushed to deliver her little boy safely.
Even after all that suffering, bed shortages meant mother and baby were sent home just two days later. Hardly time to recover from major surgery.
Latest statistics show that 28,000 women over 40 gave birth last year – an age when pregnancy and birth are increasingly complex, needing more of midwives’ time and often surgical intervention. That is twice as many as a decade ago and 20,000 more thanin 1986.
Yet, according to the Royal College of Midwives, midwife numbers have not kept up with our climbing birth-rate and the added pressures, including the growing numbers of obese and older pregnant women.
RCM general secretary Cathy Warwick warns that many maternity units are under-staffed and under-resourced, adding that: “The combination of births becoming increasingly complex and the rising birthrate is a dangerous cocktail threatening the safety and quality of maternity care.”
Tragically, this is nothing new. When I had my first baby at the age of 41 two decades ago, the situation was exactly the same: insufficient midwives, insufficient beds in maternity wards and insufficient resources.
As medical correspondent of the Daily Mirror at the time, I knew first hand about the then Conservative Government’s National Health Service cuts and was scared stiff I would
become a victim. I had the disadvantage of having spoken to many women whose lives, and those of their babies, had been put at risk because of awful shortages of midwives and equipment. These were women in labour whose local maternity unit was full and who had been shuttled between different hospitals in search of a bed.
I asked the opinion of one of the country’s leading obstetricians who was a good contact of mine. The first-class maternity unit where he was a consultant, and which happened to be in my then local hospital, had been shut down to save money. He was devotedly dedicated to the NHS, but advised me that the only way I could guarantee the care that I wanted for me and my baby was to pay privately. Despite it being against my socialist principles, I took his advice.
Sadly, in the 20 years between my and my friend’s experiences of childbirth, nothing has improved. Despite all Labour’s promises and the money that has been poured into the NHS, many maternity services are still in crisis.
Despite the last Labour Government and the current Conservative-led one putting choice at the top of their health agendas, there is no choice when it comes to maternity care. Obviously, a woman has to go to her nearest unit. It is not practical to travel miles when you are in labour. And, if the local unit is short of staff and resources, there is nothing she can do about it.
So still the only real choice if you are pregnant and want to guarantee a bed, a midwife and even a doctor when you need them is to pay privately.
