Closing smaller maternity units

[Asosbabe]

Who is making this decision? Surely this is where tax £s are well spent?

Tbf the birthing population is very different to the 1950s also. I don't know how far it's possible to make much useful comparison.

I'm a midwife. My understanding from reading the news is that this is about "smaller" units in general hospitals. Not stand alone or side by side MLU's. This would affect people in major towns. Not just rural. We are talking of losing maternity units that are circa 2000 births a year. These are approx 10 bed labour wards along side 25-30 bed maternity wards, with a NNU on site... not smaller MLU facilities.

Exactly my reading. Which is terrifying.

The 1950s they used high forceps if necessary. Lots of women must have had horrendous injuries with them.

You also need to look at the birth deaths, many more will have survived with better neonatal care.

They still use forceps - friend had a forceps delivery in 2014

I bet births and gynae got more than 2% of the NHS budget inbthe 50s. Would be interesting to know when the disconnect and gradual of erosion of maternity services happened. Locally it seemed to be around 2009/10.

• Outlet Forceps: The baby's scalp is visible at the introitus without separating the labia, and the skull has reached the pelvic floor (+4 station).
• Low Forceps: The leading edge of the fetal skull is at station +2 or lower (but not yet at outlet level).
• Midforceps: The head is engaged (station 0 to +1), though they are used much less frequently today.
• High Forceps: Completely abandoned and considered unacceptable practice. 1, 2, 3]

High forceps are no longer used, Mid rarely, pulled from Wikipedia but you can look them up, prior to safe c-sections they were better than nothing.

It would be impossible to compare as a percentage.
The 1950s the birth rate would have been higher.
But other costs much lower Neonatal care, Cancer care, lots of other things people would just have died - sad but true.

The national Birth Trauma Inquiry revealed that poor maternity care has frequently been "tolerated as normal," with 1 in 3 women experiencing birth trauma and approximately 30,000 women affected annually. An estimated 87% of units operate with unsafe staffing levels. Midwives and obstetricians face extreme burnout, routinely resulting in junior staff being left to perform senior tasks without supervision. I don't understand why closing off options, not employing more midwives just to keep to a budget is meant to help anyone. Surely we should be opening new better and properly staffed healthcare for women, which was what the health hubs were meant to be doing. So many expensive studies shouting this yet the NHS seems to be sticking it's fingers in it's ears.

Maybe you are right and the question is really do we support new life and mothers in our population or keep doing everything we can to extend older lives and fund the extra costs that come with a body where multiple things then go wrong due to the excessive age? I get this is why Burham is trying to separate care from NHS, but wouldn't the assisted dying bill have made more sense? I feel so sad for Ester Ranzen and her family. A lot of people just don't want that slow prolonged death. It traumatises the whole family.

I've no doubt units are understaffed which is why it makes more sense to close under used units and free up those staff.

Staff seems to be the main driver for homebirths, having 2 mw to yourself rather than 1 or 2 running around between multiple women in multiple rooms.

But I still don't think you can compare spending percentage now to 60 years ago when more expensive illnesses are treated when back in the day people would just have died.