MIDWIFERY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY - ACTION NOW

Do Women Want Midwives or Obstetric Nurses?

If you are expecting a baby, or you have had a baby recently, you may have been unable to get the kind of care you want or noticed how few midwives are available. While the government promotes 'choice' and the National Service Framework has developed a 10 year strategy to encourage change, there are many areas where the quality of maternity care has worsened. Far too many fit and healthy women have no choice but to give birth in high technology units. These units may be the best option if you or your baby are likely to have problems, but they are not appropriate for the majority of women. Because they focus on problems and complications, they intervene unnecessarily far too often and as a result have excessively high caesarean section rates, induce or accelerate labours far too soon and offer little support in labour. These units are often short-staffed and as a result the midwives are expected to look after more than one labouring women at the same time thereby denying them the emotional support and encouragement most labouring women need.

To compound this problem we now have a generation of midwives who are not accustomed to supporting women who expect to have a normal birth. As result, far too many women are left alone during labour or, at the earliest moment, are encouraged to have drugs to speed up the labour.

The quality of care would improve if women were enabled to choose the midwife they would like and midwives were enabled to have their own case loads so that they would be able to look after women during pregnancy, birth and for a period post-natally.