This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
Women lacking birth choices, RCM says
The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has outlined that women are still being denied choice when it comes to birth options.
At the RCM’s annual conference, Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the RCM, said: “Despite the rhetoric, too many women are still denied a choice over fundamental issues, such as where they give birth. This is leaving many having a less than positive experience of pregnancy and birth.
“While it is encouraging that the number of alongside midwifery units has virtually doubled in the last five years, the same cannot be said for fetal medicine units and homebirths. Although there has been a modest increase in the number of freestanding birth centres, the proportion of women birthing in them has barely increased and the home birth rate continues to fall.”
Warwick did welcome the government’s maternity safety action plan, which includes a maternity safety training fund of £8 million and a £250,000 innovation fund for safety projects in maternity, and a new voluntary compensation scheme for families who suffered harm after maternity care failings.
She said: “If implemented it could have a significant and positive impact on the safety of England’s maternity services, and contribute towards better and safer care for mothers and babies.”
However, Warwick also warned that sustaining the health of midwives needed greater attention.
She said: “We know from our workplace representatives that your work is intensifying, that you struggle to take your breaks you should be entitled to and that you are working extra hours that are go unpaid.
“This is leading to more midwives and midwifery support workers feeling stressed and burnt out, to increases in sickness and turnover rates and that morale is suffering as a result. We cannot continue as we are, relying as we do on over-stretched teams of midwives and midwifery support workers to paper over the cracks.”
She added: “No more should money be wasted on agency and temporary staff when the same money could end the shortage of midwives by employing more.”
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