Category: birth choice
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What Happened To Continuity Of Care?
A small pilot scheme aiming to improve maternity care has been axed. It’s left some pregnant women suddenly without the care they were expecting and wondering where to turn now. It also raises questions for maternity services nationwide. It was announced this week that Neighbourhood Midwives is to close. The group operated an NHS continuity-of-care pilot…
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Comments On Maternal Request Cesareans
A couple of days ago, the charity Birthrights published a report into maternal request cesareans. It found that 75% of UK maternity units were going against NICE guidelines and refusing women this option for giving birth to their babies. The story was covered by TV and online news, including this piece by Rebecca Schiller from…
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Consent
Is it consent if you don’t really want to, but you say ok anyway. Because it doesn’t seem worth the argument, and you don’t want to piss off the person who’s asking? If you make a thought out choice to agree to a big thing, can it be assumed you also consent to something lesser…
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Getting Involved Offline – The National Maternity and Perinatal Audit
I’ve set myself a few challenges for this, my third (and final) round of maternity leave. With my older two children at school and a severely diminished interest in group singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I’m doing things a bit differently. I’ve ditched (most of) the baby groups. Instead, I’ve been looking for opportunities to get…
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The Slightly Sweary Caesarean Recovery Plan
I’ve had three caesarean births. I still wish I had a detailed plan about how to recover from one. If you look for the pros and cons of C-section V vaginal birth, the recovery is always a big deal. Caesarean recoveries are much harder we’re told. But that’s about all we’re told. When I first…
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Thinking About Birth, Third Time Around
I’ve been awaiting the invention of fetal teleportation for more than seven years now. I mean seriously world, I can instantly access all of human knowledge, every pop song ever recorded and eleventy zillion cat videos all from this slab of metal on my lap. But when it comes to the seemingly minor task of…
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Silencing Negative Birth Stories
Silencing negative birth stories only helps to create more, robs women of their voice and treats us like delicate snowflakes who can’t be trusted with the truth. Remind me again what century this is? Keep Quiet and Carry On That seemed to be the message on twitter recently, from a senior midwife to women who’ve…
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Choosing A Caesarean, And Having that Choice Refused.
I seem to write endlessly about caesareans on here, it was never my intention with this blog, but hey that’s the joy of having one’s own little online vanity project. Often I’m writing in response to news articles on the subject and almost always those talk about the terrible rise in C sections, how unecessary…
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The National Maternity Review – What Does Choice Mean?
The NHS National Maternity Review has called for women to have more choice and greater continuity in their maternity care – yet it was very quiet on some of the choices many women want or need. So what does choice really mean for pregnant women and will the options recommended in the review ever be…
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Acupuncture For All – On the NHS?
I was really disappointed to read this article today in the Guardian, The general gist is that some doctors think acupuncture works and should be available on the NHS with all doctors learning at least a little about it in training and midwives being trained to administer it to ease labour pain. According to the…
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