Home births threatened - Save the Albany Midwives (link to petition here)

[MavisG]

Midwifery services in South East London like the Albany and Oakwood midwives have been offering women continuity of care (you meet your midwife team through your pregnancy, in your house if you want, and one of them is with you at your birth whether you have a C/S or homebirth or whatever) and genuine choice of where to give birth, offering the kind of service that should be extended throughout the country.

Here's the news article.

Please sign the petition here.

Bump.

Posted similar on site stuff as had no idea where to put it.

And you included a link to the Albany midwives' site which shows what they do.

Bump.

Have signed.

Done. The alternative pre-natal care I received in that area was grim (not only did I never see the same midwife twice, they were all locums anyway so the same midwives didn't even work in the region from appointment to appointment).

Chaotica - mine too. Kings midwives totally forgot me with my second son. I called them around 38 weeks after seeing someone at 12 weeks and said, uh, am I supposed to see someone again?
They had no idea who I was. If I had been a first time mother I would have been terrified.

I sent away the midwife who initially came to my birth because she was so horrible and rude to me because I was not in active labour. Perhaps if I had been told what to do or who to call I would have known that.
Kings had to call out some midwives from forest hill practice because when I finally did have the baby, no one was available to attend me.
There was NO aftercare at all.

My son was just delivered by an Albany midwife (just before the HBs were suspended)
and I had the best care I could have dreamed of.

This is something that all mothers should be standing up for and telling the NHS & government that the current maternity services are NOT acceptable. Woman deserve the kind of care the Albany offer(ed).

Bump

?Happy Birth? for all.
The midwifery care with personal and continuing care of two midwives, the philosophy of the Albany midwives practice, is example of excellent midwifery practice and has a solid base in evidence. 'All women should be offered midwife-led models of care and women should be encouraged to ask for this option' a quote of Professor Jane Sandall, NIHR King's Patient Safety and Service Quality Research Centre, King's College London.

The innovations of the Albany midwives results in better outcome of birth of all women. But ..... nobody is perfect, so please be constructive and communicate complains with your own Albany midwife ?open? and personally.
Improvement and progress in this progressive midwifery care programme can only be made with your input!

Smile, cry, speak out, listen and create. Wonder, after the emotions meld down, what improvements can be made, in partnership with midwives!

Tine Oudshoorn, RN, RM, BEd, senior consultant.
Dear Doctor Michel Odent,

Save the Albany1

Not sure about the Save the Albany campaign - I think I would like to know a bit more. The Albany midwives seemed to have an oxygen starvation rate about two and a half times higher - that IS a bit worrying! I'm not sure I buy into the conspiracy theory that it is all political without seeing some evidence. I know the perinatal mortality rate for the Albany is lower than the main hospital but that is not a fair comparison because the hospital will be dealing with the high risk cases.
I think I'd like to look at the facts before I sign up to this:-)

I had the ideal birth experience at home with Albany, and would be really angry to think others might be denied this.

That said I know a woman who works in neo-natal intensive care who said they had a higher than normal (i.e. what they see from other home-birth teams) intake of Albany babies.

I don't know if that's objectively the case, or if the well-documented mutual animosity and suspicion is feeding that impression. It's almost impossible to know the real facts, precisely because of the reciprocal 'us against them' atmosphere.

Wish they could all take a deep breath, work together to iron out problems and provide pregnant women and babies with the care they deserve. Chances of that happening...

"Albany Midwifery Practice
King?s College Hospital puts patient safety before all other considerations. For this reason we have terminated our contract with the Albany Midwives practice.

We have become concerned about the safety record of the practice in comparison with the Trust?s overall maternity safety record. Our records show that whilst Albany delivered babies for 4% of all King?s births, those births accounted for 42% of our full term babies born with Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy, a condition whereby brain damage may be caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain, at or around the time of delivery. The Trust formed the view based on this evidence that babies delivered by an Albany midwife were at higher risk of contracting serious Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy (HIE). Albany are responsible for some 200 births out of an annual total of around 5,700 babies born at King?s.

Because of our concerns, we also asked The Centre for Maternal and Child Enquiries (CMACE) to carry out an independent investigation. The review was not a statistical analysis - it set out to ascertain the underlying causes of the poor outcomes associated with the Albany practice.

Albany are working with us to ensure that women booked with them are being looked after. We also hope that individual Albany midwives will join the Trust as employees. The Trust runs nine other midwife-led community practices, who offer choice to the women of SE London. At 9%, King?s has one of the best records of home births in the county.

We have shared a copy of the CMACE report with the Albany practice. We have also briefed and sent a copy of the report to the Royal College of Midwives, The Nursing and Midwifery Council, Monitor, the Care Quality Commission and the Department of Health, as well as other local and national stakeholders."

That's 4% of all King?s births, accounted for 42% of full term babies with Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy.