The 'National Shame' of England's Maternity Service - Harm Normalised

Completely agree. Feminism's own mommy issues (hey, we all have them!).

As far as women being encouraged to have kids - in the UK, and the west generally, most women have fewer children than they would like, due to the constraints of finances, work and housing

Yeah, and frankly I think this attitude around motherhood is an element within feminism that has at it's heart a kind of deep hatred for the female body. That kind of feminism is never going to appeal to most women.

The idea that "the patriarchy" is responsible for women wanting to be mothers is pretty fucked up.

really? REALLY? on a thread about the awful maternity service you had to "wah wah what about da menz"?

go away and think about what you did

I agree that this is problematic too. There was an understandable reaction to the over medicalisation of birth in the early 20th century but this seems to have morphed into wilful denial that women who have major abdominal surgery; perineal and internal tears, cuts stitches; sleep deprivation etc. might need nursing care, nutrition, rest and support.

It isn't the midwife led model that is responsible for this though. If you switched to a doctor led model you aren't suddenly going to have women being properly looked after post-birth and given lots of TLC and rest and support. Most of the crappy care happens on consultant-led units, where most women have their babies.

I have worked in the NHS as a midwife and now work in Canada. The biggest problem in the UK is staffing. There is just not adequate time, money or resources to look after women appropriately in either pregnancy or postnatally. Home visits have been slashed and midwives' patient loads on postnatal wards are insane. There is often no opportunity to provide the most basic levels of care. Crazy amounts of documentation and double charting and forms don't actually help, they just give less time for patient care.

Exceptions do exist. NHS home birth teams are often amazing in providing excellent care; my sister's experience of two births with a team in south London was second to none, even though neither birth ended up being at home.

There is also a massive culture problem in the NHS of not individualizing care, and of a lot of midwives and doctors being ground down by the job and becoming incredibly uncaring. I don't believe they go into it with that intention, but it needs to be addressed. I'm sure better working conditions and more time would go a long way.

I mean imagine tipping up at the surgical ward and leaving a newborn baby with your post-op brother to look after for an afternoon. There would be an uproar as he’s post op and needs to rest and recover (leaving aside the issue of other people on the ward). Yet women are left with unanswered buzzers after 30 hours labours ending in C-section with numb legs, catheters and no food of the timing is unlucky.

So many women end up with infected scars, PPD and other problems.

I agree that this is problematic too. There was an understandable reaction to the over medicalisation of birth in the early 20th century but this seems to have morphed into wilful denial that women who have major abdominal surgery; perineal and internal tears, cuts stitches; sleep deprivation etc. might need nursing care, nutrition, rest and support.

There no logic to it when on a nearby surgical ward patients are actively cared for after comparable surgery. It is horrible and women deserve better.

Are you a parody account, @Pinkbonbon?

The thing is, it's not actually that extremist.
It's actually pretty innate to avoid physical harm. So - we have to ask ourselves why we aren't doing that?

For so long we didn't have the choice. But now we do.

So having kids... has simply become a cultural norm. One that harms women. Consistently.

These kids don't exist. And yet we risk our very lives for them.

That doesn't make sense.

I think both things can be true simultaneously: UK maternity care is a scandal that needs fixing

And

Women are encouraged to have kids and not told about the risks (I certainly had no idea and realise now I was fortunate and got off lightly. My mum tends to minimise other women's issues - while other story - and scoffed at birth horror stories and tales of pain. I don't have older sisters and didn't at that point have older friends to advise me).

But that's just not true though. Sure, people don't tend to die in the UK but serious injury is still common place. As are life long body changes, post natal depression, career setbacks, potentially being tied to abusers through these new connections and all manner of other shit.

Even by these new stats, we can see the hospitals aren't meeting the basic standards they set for themselves for care. But if they were, it still doesn't improve things for us much in the grand scheme of things.

And rather than protect ourselves we choose to have children.

Now maybe it's unfair to say that we're all brainwashed. Some people are aware of all the risks and take them because they really want kids. But realistically, many women seem to be in the dark about potential harms. Men too of course. But then, it arguably suits them to remain in the dark.

Many of us don't seem to give much thought into having kids either, they are simply 'the next step' in relationships. And so we find ourselves feeling trapped in a life we realise didn't want 5 years down the line, giving it 'I love my kids but...'.

We're told by society not to look into the risks and harms, that it's normal and everything will be OK and we should risk our health, mental well being, careers, personal freedoms and potentially even our lives, for people that do not even exist! It's martyrdom on a inconceivable scale!

This 'it's safe enough if the hospitals do things right' natarative is so damaging.

It's never safe. If we told our daughters, sisters and girl friends they were enough just as they are and that self care isn't selfish, far less of us would take unnecessary gambles.

People think increase training places but we genuinely can’t. Every student needs around 22 weeks on a labour ward over three years in order to meet their competencies and also get their birth numbers. A labour ward can only have x amount of students per shift depending on the size of the ward, number of midwives per shift. Believe me every maternity hospital is packed with students.

I'm glad you mentioned this, because people assume it's easy, but it isn't. Training a midwife isn't the same as teaching a history degree - you can't just pack extra people into a lecture call.

But the problem isn't really a lack of new midwives anyway. The birthrate in the UK is falling. The problem is more to do with older, experienced midwives leaving to do less stressful jobs - or to become agency midwives, which is better paid and allows people more flexibility with their working hours. If the NHS could find a way to improve retention, we'd be in a much better position.

There is a shortage of 2,000 midwives yet training schemes are difficult to access.

Sadly there’s now also a lot of unemployed newly qualified midwives due to hospital trusts not having the money to increase staffing or even fill vacancies. This is a national problem but worse in some areas.

I’m a midwifery lecturer and not all my students who have just finished have got jobs, it’s all over m6 social media about the national issue and my current students are worried.

that is more fixable than the issue of lack of training places. People think increase training places but we genuinely can’t. Every student needs around 22 weeks on a labour ward over three years in order to meet their competencies and also get their birth numbers. A labour ward can only have x amount of students per shift depending on the size of the ward, number of midwives per shift. Believe me every maternity hospital is packed with students. The hospitals will tell us how many students they can have per week per ward. We sit down with the hospitals and spend a lot of time planning numbers and putting this massive jigsaw together. So as a university we are strictly limited on number of places by the amount of students the hospitals can have. It’s so tight if a student misses a week or two due to illness it’s a nightmare to get them back on the ward.

@Pinkbonbon Radical feminism has long had a problem with motherhood. For most people, having children is not something they have been brainwashed to do and it is very easy to reduce the risk to women.

What I've brought up is literally 'radical feminism' actually. The idea that women will never be free of the patriarchy if they keep having children.

Pointing out why something isn't a good idea for women in terms of physical saftey or personal freedoms doesn't make it anti feminist.

Feminism isn't just 'you can do it sister'. It's acknowledgement that we are different from men and there are risk factors we can avoid in order to help keep our freedoms. Having babies will never be safe.

Of course the choice is there if you really want kids. But I believe in thoroughly discouraging it. Especially considering a huge swathe of women have kids as they just feel they were...supposed to. And wind up slaves in their own homes. Afraid to 'split up their family' even when partners become abusive.

Sure, hospitals should do better. But if we were better educated on the risks of childbirth and the, I suppose, potential Undesirable trappings which are more prevalent for women... less of us would be in a position of needing to worry about it in the first place.

The cost of settling medical negligence claims in maternity is now higher than the overall maternity care budget so it doesn't even make sense from a monetary perspective.

Maternity claims make up 3/4 of all settlements, and 1,200 claims were settled last year. There is a shortage of 2,000 midwives yet training schemes are difficult to access.

The problem imo is the ridiculous almost partisan division between consultant and midwife.

I totally agree with this. To me, it seems a pendulum reaction (to a more doctor-led and mysoginistic era), at the cost of mothers, again.

This certainly feels like an area where MNHQ might show some leadership as they have at other points.

iirc, Baroness Merron is Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State with the helpful collection of Patient Safety, Women's Health and Mental Health in her actual job title. She would be a splendid point of contact for a collated expression of concern.

I heard Wes Streeting on the news this morning saying this was one of the things that keeps him awake at night - it bloody should! I only have one child, in large part due to the catastrophic failings across the board during my pregnancy and birth. DD and I are only alive because of the actions of one consultant who convinced the team I wasn’t a ‘whinger with a low pain threshold’.
Added to that was the most dehumanising 2 weeks under hospital ‘care’ where I was refused the basic right of being referred to by my name (only ever called mum) and given no information regarding my health or that of my baby while being sneered at and mocked by a particularly nasty healthcare assistant every time she was on shift.
The first time I went back to the hospital after being discharged I had a full blown panic attack and subsequently got diagnosed with PTSD.
Radical changes are needed to protect women in the most vulnerable time of their lives - these issues are well publicised so is it any wonder more and more women are deciding not to have kids?

It's atrocious. The NHS is failing all but especially women. Maternity Services and Gynae are both so horribly managed and it's such a minefield.

I gave birth during Covid so i (stupidly) let off my bad treatment and put it down to covid causing issues with staffing but apparently it wasn't. I had one of the rudest staff members i've ever dealt with on the post partum ward. Ignored while i wasn't able to feed my child and asking for help and ignored about my concerns regarding tongue tie.

I have been under complete midwife care through 2 pregnancies. My first care was NHS led and was frankly third world in level of care. My current pregnancy is private care and fantastic. The problem I don't think is midwife led care, but the lack of time NHS midwives are given to do their job. My appointments are an hour verses the 5/10 minutes I experienced with NHS.

Yes some are shit, I have been on the receiving end but often it appears it is trust policy which causes many problems.

From talking with my current midwife and in my experience, the NHS policy is increasingly about cost cutting which is cutting corners or trying to force woman to fit certain timeframes/metrics which are often not backed by research rather than following the scientific evidence and treating woman as individual patients. I am not sure moving from midwife care to doctor led care would change this culture/policy problem.