Women will have more choice over where to give birth
Katy Morton
Friday, July 15, 2011
Maternity services should be reformed to allow women to give birth outside hospitals, according to a group of leading health experts.
They say that the rising birth rate and increasingly high risk births, caused by women having children later on in life and the increase in obesity, has put added pressure on services, along, with a shortfall of almost 5000 midwives in England.
RCOG’s report on women’s healthcare warns that it will not be possible for hospitals to continue to provide the same maternity service as they do now.
To relieve this pressure, they propose allowing women with low-risk pregnancies to give birth at home or in a midwifery-led unit, with the option of a hospital birth still available to them if they choose.
They also suggest cutting consultant units so that senior doctors can provide more 24-hour care to maternity patients experiencing complex births.
Under their proposals, pregnant women would initially be assessed by a midwife or nurse to decide whether they are low or high risk and the options available to them.
Their recommendations form part of a wider vision of delivering all women’s gynaecology and obstetrics care in networks.
The report comes after the Office of National Statistics’s 2010 figures revealed that there were 723,165 live births in England and Wales last year, the highest figure in almost four decades.
Belinda Phipps, chief executive of the National Childbirth Trust said they welcomed the report and the idea of having a network to provide joined-up care for women. However they argued that the proposals did not go far enough and suggested care throughout pregnancy, birth and the post-natal period to be managed by one organisation in each area.
‘NCT and its supporters have consistently campaigned for women to make their own decision about where to have their baby, and for services that support birth at home or in a midwife-led unit to be available for approximately the two-thirds of women who are likely to have a straightforward birth.’
‘It is fantastic to see that leading obstetricians, having looked at the evidence, agree that birth out of hospitals can and should be made widely available, as the preferred place of birth for many women.’
