An excerpt from an email from Belinda Phipps, Chief executive of NCT regarding a discussion tomorrow on Radio 4:
“On Wednesday, Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 will be discussing Maternity Matters, and the choices that were guaranteed to all women. Among these is the guarantee of choice of place of birth – the guarantee that all women by the end of 2009 would have the choice between having their babies at home, in a freestanding or alongside birth centre or in an obstetric unit in a hospital.
The Department of Health are claiming that the vast majority of Primary Care Trusts are now delivering on these guarantees. This means that the vast majority of women should be able to choose between the three options above. Our research shows that 95% of women don’t have reasonable access to all three of these options.
I’ll be on the programme, arguing the case – that the three options aren’t realistically available to most of the women in England, and that where they are, all too often staff shortages or insufficient numbers of beds in units means that doors are closed and that choice is removed from women.”
Certainly true here. The nearest Birth Centre is Andover and we have a local GP practice that discourages home births (or certainly did three years ago). Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/ to contribute to the debate.
January 27, 2010 at 10:37 am
I heard the programme and it was very interesting. One thing I’d love to know is what the actual figures are on what women are given choice / denied choice when it actually comes to birth (on the day).
I was denied all choice about my birth upfront because of a minor medical condition, and have been told despite a normal birth first time around, I would still be denied all those options. They mentioned people who are exempt from choice because of medial conditions, it would be interesting again to find out what percentage of mothers are categorised as non-choice due to underlying conditions.
I should say that I think for a first birth, to be over cautious in categorising someone as at risk is fair enough, but on a second birth I would expect a risk analysis to come up with a different result.
January 27, 2010 at 10:45 am
Basingstoke is trying to collect those figures, although they are struggling to get mums to fill in the questionnaires at the moment! I will see if I can find the latest results FYI.
January 27, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Thanks for the posting about the programme. I found it really interesting, especially regarding a trusts income! I was lucky and had a home birth for my second and ended up with four midwives….there wasn’t much room left in our lounge! I found the original midwife at Clift really pro home births and the support of NCT gave us the confidence in this option. However I realise having such a choice and being able to see it into a reality relied on a lot of luck regarding risk level and staffing.
January 27, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Sarah, It’s really good to hear that someone locally using a local GP practice had a well-staffed successful home birth. Was this recent?
January 27, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Yes, back in July. Originally all the on-call midwives were out seeing other women, but as the hospital was quiet and I’d booked a home birth, they sent out two hospital midwives. They said they would leave when the on-call arrived, but it was so quick they ended up staying. They also requested for another midwife to bring more gas and air. That’s how I ended up with so many!