MN midwives and health professionals - your opinions please!!!

[Greensleeves]

Copied from another thread:

"Today's Independent on Sunday leads with news that record numbers of women are being harmed or dying as a direct result of childbirth in what doctors are labelling a "crisis" in maternity care.

There has been a rise of 21 per cent in deaths of pregnant women in the care of NHS maternity services.

Deaths over the past three years now total 391, up one fifth on the comparable period, and 17,000 women have suffered physical harm while on labour wards."

What do MN's midwives and other health professionals make of this news? How does it relate to your own experience?

I am very angry about this (unsurprisingly) but am very interested to know what those working on the "front line" think has caused this crisis, and what can be done to improve matters.

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Don't have any right to a professional opinion as I'n not in that line of work, but bloody hell! What's going on?!

Quite

hei greensleeves, I'm not a professional, but I'm interested as well, and I had one baby in Italy and one in the UK. I actually had a much better experience of birth here in England, but I personally find that ante natal care here is a bit... wanting...

Hi franca

That's interesting about the difference between Italy and England. What was it that was better here, was it the staff, or the facilities? wonder what the maternal death statistics in the rest of Europe are like, and whether there has been this sharp deterioration recently elsewhere?

IMO, not as a professional , but as an interested party is this...

the midwifery profession is approximately 10 000 midwives short

the midwives remaining in the profession are therefore stretched to the limit very often, and not able to always provide the best care

this impacts also on the availability of home births too

also, midwifery led units and birth centres are being closed, and not being replaced, so midwives are being reabsorbed into hospitals. or leaving.

a doula i know has applied for midwifery , there are only 18 places available.......

so if other universities have similar numbers of places, then the gap is never going to be filled

also, independent midwifery is dying a death as insurance is no longer available

it is a crying shame

the hospitals where i had my babies were excellent however, and i cannot fault the care i received, from the midwives..if they were overstretched and understaffed, it did not impact on my care...

it is impossible to expect maternity care to be as safe as it should be all the time when hospitals and midwives are running on empty

hi .
I'm not sure about the rest of Europe, but I'd say that in Italy things aren't going as well as they should for the public health sector, and it also varies from region to region.
I had a lovely experience here, mainly because I was lucky to have a really easy birth , I delivered two hours after having arrived to the hospital. But the midwife was really lovely, encouraging, and she seemed to know what she was doing etc. the hospital was very quiet, as it was a sunday afternoon... she always stayed with us, but again, I was there only for two hours.
On the other hand I felt, during the pregnancy, that there is a too much (at least for my very apprehensive nature) laid back attitude towards pregnancy, and I really think a third scan at around 30 weeks should be offered as a routine, as well as the test for strep b. [few years ago I read a similar report in the guardian... it was quite scary....]

agree with lulu

lulu independent midwives are about to be dealt a death blow when the government brings in compulsory indemnity insurance. It currently stands at £25K a year!!!!!!!!

How many indies do you think will be able to afford that?????????

Slippery slope. We won't be far behind methinks. Blood outrageous!

Marscentio - why is it so expensive? My DH is self-employed (not a midwife) and he has insurance for £1 million or 2. He only pays a few hundred £ a year.

Because they are involved at the very beginning of life and there's a lifetime of care to be considered.

OK, I get what you say. But 25K a year would mean insurance for hundreds of millions of pounds. Surely no sum this big has ever been awarded in any case. (Not discussing whether it should or not, just the situation so far.) Is this the current level of insurance or a proposed one? If it's proposed is this just scaremongering? Lastly, how can the profession operate without compulsory insurance currently? Sorry for all the questions, I'm alarmed!

a doula i know has applied for midwifery , there are only 18 places available.......
I went to an open day at plymouth university, they offer 40 places and receive more than 400 applications!

I am a midwife and where I work the staffing is not bad at the moment but they are cutting the number of midwives on the postnatal/antenatal ward because of money and I know that they were understaffed on the labour ward last year - before I arrived. It is basically a money thing. Lots of newly qualified midwives couldn't get jobs at the end of last summer, not because the hospitals didn't need them but because they couldn't afford to take them on. They are training more midwives than they used to but not employing them.

The deaths thing is very scary but to be honest, because it is not that bad where I am working, I couldn't comment. It is where midwives routinely have to look after 2 or 3 labouring women - I just don't know how they do it - well obviously they don't and that is the problem

as a midwife who has recently decided to get out i feel a bit awful now- i have just had a new baby and have made it clear that i will not be returning, i have started a new business and for the first time in years i am sleeping at night and feeling human again!
I have posted in the past about the shortages and cuts that our local area has faced and i suddenly thought that i can't do it anymore.
i worked for 4 long years to get my degree and then spent a further 3 years training on the wards. I was in turn earning less than the average shelf stacker with unsociable and unpredictable hours to cope with as well.
i joined the midwifery proffesion as it was a passion and i honestly enjoyed doing my job, but the politics and paperwork tipped me over the edge.
With enough staffing and achievable budgets maternity units would be fantastic as like me many midwifes do it because they genuinly care, but in the current climate we are unable to do our job to the best of our ability.

I have to agree with franca on that one about care during pregnancy.

Although I sounded very harsh against HV and MW I believe strongly that if sometime they cannot deliver the service they should it is because they are overworked and understaffed.

I had as well a super easy birth - 3 hours from when I got in and out of the hospital 4 hours later. Even then I could see how rushed they all were.
Birthing pools room stay unused often enough because there're not enough MW. there's not an obstetrician in sight nor a doctor at times.

I did and do work in places that are understaffed and poorly managed and doesn't matter how good one is and how much one might care... the whole system makes it impossible to deliver good service and eventually it will break you.