Hello - here's something from March for Midwives (scroll down for what you can do and tell us below if you're getting involved):
"Four weeks ago four doulas were lying in bed on a Sunday morning having a whatsapp conversation about how hopeless we all felt about the state of maternity care. A Royal College of Midwives (RCM) report last month revealed that 60% of UK midwives are considering leaving the profession, and sadly none of us were surprised. We all had stories to share of midwives in tears and birthing families neglected or coerced through their maternity journey.
One of us, Paula Cleary, who lives in March in Cambridgeshire, said that she was considering having a ‘March in March’ to protest against the understaffing in her local hospital. The rest of us all responded that this needed to be everywhere because this is a nationwide issue!
So March With Midwives was born that morning. Becki Scott set up a Facebook group and we all invited our birthworker friends. It grew rapidly, to over a 1000 people that first week.
We quickly realised this was tapping into the zeitgeist. Maternity workers and families were joining the group in droves, anxious to share their stories. The group became an emotional maelstrom as midwives and parents shared their trauma and sadness. We realised these voices needed to be captured so that the powers that be could really understand the depths of the crisis. So we set up an online form for service users and health professionals to write about how the staffing crisis has affected them, either anonymously or with their name.
We rapidly realised we needed help. The group was growing exponentially and we were inundated with people asking us for guidance on all number of things - are midwives allowed to attend? What is the RCM and NMC saying? How do we risk-assess a local demonstration? Do we need insurance and do we need to alert the police? (All questions we have answers to in the group now - just check our announcements and shared files).
We gathered a steering group around us of fellow doulas and midwives. We knew we needed a diverse group that represented parents, lay birth workers, NHS midwives and independent midwives. And, given the outrageous statistics on increased risk of maternal death for Black and Brown mothers and birthing people, we were also determined to include people from marginalised communities so that their voices could be amplified.
We realised we had an opportunity here to gather a diverse range of maternity voices under one banner, so we embarked on writing a manifesto summing up the issues and calling for some simple, emergency crisis management measures.
We also wrote a template letter for people to send to their MPs. We called for everyone to stand up around the country on the same day, at the same time, and called these gatherings vigils, to underscore the deep grief so many of us feel at the broken state of maternity services.
Meanwhile, the group grew. And grew. At the time of writing the facebook group contains nearly 20,000 people. Our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages are growing by the day. Our inboxes are flooded with people sharing their stories and wanting to help. A handful of distressed doulas has grown into a grassroots movement with real momentum.
So what exactly is up with the service? To cut a long story short, we quite simply do not have enough of anything - too few midwives, too few beds, not enough resources or time, which leads to not enough energy or compassion for the families needing support. The result? Parents that are damaged by either too much medical intervention or, conversely, falling through the cracks and not receiving the medical care they need. Those of us working with families in the postnatal period were not surprised when research found that up to a third of mothers/birthing people have symptoms of trauma.
As Elsie Gayle, experienced midwife, says, "The inevitability of the 'shoehorning' of maternity care into structures that continue to cause the systematic erasure of midwives, avoidable damage, deaths and long term trauma to families. It pains me to watch British maternity care diminish to its lowest point ever in the pursuit of the economies of scale."
Burned out midwives are abandoning the wrecked ship in droves; physical and mental health in tatters. Recent research found that midwives are increasingly suffering with PTSD. Urinary tract infections are common because they have no time to go to the toilet and they’re often not drinking on shift to reduce the urge to go. The pandemic has merely exposed an existing crisis in staffing and worsened staff retention. Meanwhile, students are also leaving their courses before graduation or shortly after qualifying, as the work conditions are so horrific. This means that the Government’s assurances that many new midwives are being trained is simply not the solution.
This isn’t a looming crisis. We have known about the staffing issues for years. The stuff has now well and truly hit the fan and we urgently need the voices of parents, midwives and doulas to be heard by the government. This is a crisis that affects everyone. We all have loved ones using this service and potentially carrying the ripple effects of trauma into the rest of their lives.
If you want to get involved, this is what you can do:
- Join the March With Midwives Facebook group
- Repost our Twitter and Instagram content
- Make a 30 second video about why you support the campaign and post it with the hashtag #MarchWithMidwives
- Write to your MP
- If you can, find your local vigil (there is a map in the announcements in the Facebook group) and come join us on Sunday 21st November at 2pm
Together, we can amplify the voice of those who are so often silenced."