In the 1970s, in what the gynaecologist Wendy Savage called “the biggest unevaluated medical experiment in the world”, more than 80% of births took place in hospital, with procedures such as artificial induction of labour commonplace.
The activist Beverley Lawrence Beech, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 78, was vehemently opposed to the medicalisation of birth, and especially to the disregard of women’s rights and the demonising of home births. For 40 years, as chair of the campaigning group Aims (Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services), Beech was a forceful voice, exposing damaging practices and unethical behaviour, and helping bring about a paradigm shift in maternity care.
Beech gave birth to her first son, David, in 1972. In labour for 36 hours, flat on her back, she emerged from hospital traumatised. Her labour had been artificially induced and she was shocked on meeting her obstetrician to discover there had been no medical reason for it.
Her shock turned to anger and a determination to take action. When a letter about overuse of induction of labour was published in the Times, she contacted its author, Jean Robinson, who suggested she join Aims, which had been founded by Sally Willington in 1960 as “the society for prevention of cruelty to pregnant women”. Just over a year after she joined, in 1977, Beech was elected its chair (a post she held until 2017).
Soon afterwards, Beech noticed a paragraph in hospital notes saying that when a woman in labour enters hospital, her consent to any procedure is assumed. When she inquired about its legal basis, the statement was retracted, and she rightly inferred that it was not lawful. It was the tip of the iceberg: as Beech got into her stride at Aims, she discovered women were being misled left, right and centre. Passionate about getting information into their hands, she wrote books, including Who’s Having Your Baby? (1987) and Am I Allowed? (2003), which enabled women to know their rights and make decisions about birth.
Aims was run on a shoestring from Beech’s home in Surbiton, south-west London, by volunteers who answered queries, ran campaigns and produced a journal, for which Beech wrote many articles. With an encyclopedic knowledge of maternity issues, she was never afraid to challenge the narrative. In the 1980s she criticised the unevaluated use of ultrasound, and flagged up research showing that the widespread episiotomy procedure did not protect the baby or prevent tears and infections.
She successfully campaigned to admit fathers to labour wards and organised the first international waterbirth conference, which she wrote up as Water Birth Unplugged in 1996.
One of her very successful coups was highlighting how few women were having a normal birth. Following Beech’s article Normal Birth – Does It Exist? in 1997, the midwife Soo Downe carried out research showing that fewer than one in six first-time mothers were having a “spontaneous vaginal birth”. It was a wakeup call to bodies such as the Royal College of Midwives, who in 2005 launched their Campaign for Normal Birth.
At Aims, Beech heard so many stories of women in labour forced to accept pethidine or routine episiotomies that by 1982 she felt drastic action was needed. Aims and other birth organisations created a maternity defence fund to sue the medical and midwifery profession for assault. The threat of legal action reduced procedures imposed on women and helped usher in a different atmosphere.
Beech noticed fewer misogynistic comments in women’s notes, for example, and nursing and medical journals for the first time running articles on subjects such as ethics and informed consent. Under Beech’s leadership, the influence of Aims steadily helped raise ethical standards and in 1997 its Charter for Ethical Research in Maternity Care was accepted by the medical and nursing governing bodies.
She was particularly vehement but less successful in her campaign to end the overuse of caesareans. In 1985, she attended a World Health Organization conference in Brazil which concluded that hospitals should not have a caesarean rate of more than 10% (any higher would indicate they were being carried out too freely). When obstetricians argued for a higher rate, Beech defended the 10% figure. Nevertheless, the number of caesareans continued to rise and is currently around 25% of all births in the UK.
As well as running campaigns, Beech supported many individuals, notably a woman imprisoned for theft, who in 1996 was shackled during labour. Beech managed to visit her in Holloway prison, smuggling in a camera. The footage she took of the woman chained to a bed caused such a furore when released to the media that the Home Office had to end the practice. It also led to the setting up of the organisation Birth Companions to support pregnant women and new mothers in Holloway.
Beech was prepared to support those who shared her views, marching in 1985 in support of Savage, who had been suspended following her anti-caesarean opinions, and was vocal in support of the Albany midwifery practice in south London, which offered women continuity of care and an individualised approach rarely seen elsewhere in the NHS. She was able to share her views at the highest level, becoming a member of bodies such as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ maternity forum and the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Beverley was born in Tenby, south-west Wales. Her father, Charles Lawrence, was a naval lieutenant, and her mother, Josephine (nee Wickland), took care of Beverley and her younger siblings, David, Jane and Lee. Beverley attended the Tal Handaq Royal Naval school in Malta, followed by Saltash grammar school in Cornwall, leaving at 16 as, she said, her parents did not believe in educating girls.
She joined the RAF as a married quarters officer and after several years transferred to work in administration in Whitehall until 1968, when she married Geoff Beech. She took a new job in the Admiralty Compass Observatory in Slough, Berkshire, but left paid work in 1972 to start a family. Thereafter, she devoted herself to voluntary campaigning and caring for her two sons (the second, Alan, was born in 1976).
Following her divorce from Geoff, in 2003 Beech married Gavin Robertson (known as Robbie) at the London Corinthian Sailing Club in Hammersmith, west London, where she was president. The couple adored sailing and in 2022 moved to a house close by to the club.
In 2017, Beech stepped down as chair of Aims but set up the website Birth Practice and Politics Forum with like-minded activists. She continued to call out poor birth practices and mentored younger activist organisations such as When Push Comes to Shove.
Robbie died in 2009. Beech is survived by her sons, three grandchildren and her siblings.
• Beverley Ann Lawrence Beech, campaigner and writer, born 12 November 1944; died 25 February 2023
