Pregnant women have spoken of their anxiety following a decision to close the maternity unit at their local hospital in Co Derry.
Health authorities announced last week that they intend to press ahead with plans to halt births at the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine, with expectant mothers asked to move to labour wards at Antrim Area Hospital instead.
The decision came in the face of opposition from a local campaign group and pregnant women are now sharing their stories with Belfast Live in hopes the decision will be overturned.
Read more: Causeway Hospital campaigners vow to continue fight to save maternity services
Amy Gault, a mother-of-one who is expecting the arrival of her second child in September, said she worries about longer journey times to the Antrim hospital and "babies being born in cars".
She had her first child a year-and-a-half ago in the Causeway Hospital.
"I couldn't have faulted them," she said. "That's why I'm so gutted that they've made this decision. I'm gutted for me, I'm gutted for the other mummies and I'm gutted for the midwives who are amazing. It's a very worrying time because you don't know how things are going to go in your pregnancy when you go into labour. Anything could happen."
She explained: "I'm ten or fifteen minutes away from the Causeway. I live in Ballymoney, so it doesn't take us long to get there. It's farther to Antrim. There could be complications, there could be any number of things. It's ridiculous when we have the facilities there in the Causeway. The people in power have not taken consideration of the mummies or the babies, I am so disappointed in them."
She continued: "They say your second baby comes quicker than your first. I have a friend who went and did her shopping, put away her groceries and went next door to her cousin's house. They literally had to take an arm each to take her into the labour ward and her baby was born in no time. This could be a matter of babies being born in cars. That's the thing. This is what they're not taking into consideration. Whenever we have the facilities there, they're perfectly fine, and the midwives are brilliant. Why close it?"
She added: "There is this added pressure now of worrying about what if something happens, what if I need to be at the hospital sooner? If you do go earlier, will they send you away? All these different situations and scenarios are playing through my head."
Rachel Smyth, a 33-year-old mother of two from Portstewart, is in the early stages of pregnancy with her third child.
Her previous two pregnancies resulted in complications during labour but, thanks to the efforts of medical staff at the Causeway Hospital, both mother and child received excellent care.
"Both boys were born in Causeway," she explained.
"With the first one, I was induced at 37 weeks because of slow growth and the waters were declining. I was terrified of having my first baby so I was glad to be close to home with him. I ended up having an emergency section with him, my first child, in 2019.
"It was scary. I had a thing called Group B Strep, I tested positive and it meant that he could have caught that during the birth. You have to get to the hospital as quick as you can to get antibiotics. With him I was okay because I was brought in to be started, and a C-section takes away that risk anyway.
"Second time around, I tested positive for Group B Strep again. I was going to go natural that time, this was last year - he's just turned one. But with him, with Jackson, my waters broke at six in the morning. I had the other wee boy at home - he was three - and it was about getting someone to watch him and get going. Lucky enough, the Causeway was close. I had a thing called meconium in the waters which meant the baby was in distress. He was at high risk of breathing that in, so there could be a lot of complications - including being stillborn. So I had to get there as quick as I could."
She continued: "With Jackson having those different things going on, we rushed to Causeway. I was in labour with him for a wee bit and his heart rate went flying down, and then my heart rate started plummeting as well. There were loads of doctors around as well. This was a real, real emergency. Thank God, we were close to Causeway. We ended up having another C-section with him. They saved our lives, both of us."
The decision to close the hospital, she said, has left her "worried" about her third pregnancy.
"Anything could happen now, we don't know," she said. "Now, I don't drive but my partner drives. The thing is, he has a heart condition so he's not always well enough to be driving. That's why, if anything happens with the first one, if it's going to be Antrim it's not going to be that easy to get a lift. Antrim is about an hour away. Imagine you're in labour and it's tea-time traffic. I am worried.
"Also, there was a thing called the 'lotus team' in Causeway - like a wee team of midwives to try and have continuity of care. I had the same midwives throughout antenatally, during birth, and afterwards it would be the same girls coming out to me as well. It made so much difference. I knew who the girls were, I trusted them, and I was calmer even during that scary emergency.
"Now, because of this whole closure situation I don't know what's going to happen and it leaves me a wee bit anxious about what's going to happen. I thought they were trying to move towards that continuity of care and now it's nothing."
In a statement issued last week, the Permanent Secretary for the Department of Health insisted the decision to "consolidate hospital births on the Antrim Hospital site" would protect safe care.
Peter May said: “An overriding priority for our health service must be the provision of safe care for our population.
“This decision is in the best interests of mothers and babies in the Northern Trust area.
“Maintaining the current service across both the Causeway and Antrim sites would not be sustainable. Avoiding planned change would simply lead to unplanned and forced change.”
A spokesperson for the Department said the Causeway maternity unit "has become reliant on locum and temporary staff, making the provision of consistent care more difficult."
The Department also said its decision had been taken following a public consultation.
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