Your article (‘My child was drowning’: life and death on an English maternity ward, 26 March) made for salutary reading. In our experience as clinical psychologists who have been working to support midwives, obstetricians and student midwives over a number of years, we recognise the complexity of the challenges that maternity services face.
The notion that the problems are due to one issue or person, such as a belligerent consultant obstetrician, or conflict between approaches of midwives and obstetricians, will not lead to the improvements that are needed. We observe system-wide difficulties, with overstretched staff at all levels, who are often at breaking point and feel they can never get it right. They experience high levels of trauma, but usually dare not talk about their own vulnerability. What staff need is what new parents need – to be listened to and understood, with opportunities to air the emotional impact of what they experience.
Giving birth is hard enough, but to enable babies to have the best start in life, we need the opposite of services where staff are stressed, underfunded and highly pressurised. Attention needs to be paid to the experience of the whole maternity team, with opportunities created where this can be thought about and learned from.
The government should listen to and understand what support the whole system needs, including adequate funding, in order to make the changes in culture and practice that parents and staff so desperately require.
Lucy Marks, Dr Brigid MacCarthy and Dr Tamara Gelman
London
• I am a midwife. I qualified in 2009 and have worked in a few hospitals. The situations described – the attitude of management, the blind continuation of unsafe practices – all reminded me why I left. I witnessed and/or experienced bullying, racism and discrimination of staff and patients. I saw cases with care so poor I cried in my car afterwards, and worried constantly about my own name, visible in those hospital records for decades afterwards.
Poor decisions made without medical evidence by consultants who continued to work despite complaints from staff and patients; the misuse of hospital resources by doctors and midwives with other private interests. The article reminded me why I no longer work in maternity care and why I am thankful I have completed my family and don’t have to become another victim. I am devastated to no longer do the job I loved, but I cannot return to a broken system.
Name and address supplied
• My NHS midwife offered private hypnobirthing classes at the local birthing centre, where I was made to feel that the midwife‑led centre was the best option to attain a “natural” birth. I regret choosing to deliver at a birthing centre. I wish I’d listened to a consultant friend who suggested hospital was a safer choice as a first-time mother. My son’s heart rate dropped and I struggled to give birth as he was back-to-back (something they never shared with me). An ambulance was called to transfer me to Winchester, but the midwives were panicking as the heater in the resuscitation room was broken – during a snow storm. I was physically and mentally affected, but my son survived.
When I later fell pregnant with twins, I was terrified at the prospect of another midwife-led birth. I was so thankful to be assigned Martyn Pitman, the whistleblower featured in your article, to oversee my care. It felt as though he valued what was best for me and my babies, not what would be best for reporting data. They’ve lost a good doctor who may have been brusque but strived for what was best for patients.
Lauren Burrows
Winchester
• What a moving, heartbreaking article – so carefully researched and compiled. Thank you to those families who contributed. It is outrageous that the safety of vulnerable women and babies should be compromised by political decisions affecting staffing or any other matter. Safety should be paramount, with no compromise anywhere – the lives of women and their babies are too precious.
Jane Vessey
Winchester
• The account of Norah Bassett’s short life and death is another indictment of the UK’s failure to respond to decades of evidence of deterioration, dysfunction and underinvestment in maternity services. After years of stalled progress, the UK is currently ranked 29th out of 38 OECD countries on infant mortality rates; maternal deaths in the UK are significantly higher than in previous years; and 87% of midwives believe staffing levels are unsafe and many are leaving the profession.
The 2015 Morecambe Bay report exposed a decade of lethal failings in competence, culture and leadership in maternity services. Later and ongoing investigations show these problems persist across the UK.
I am a midwife who left the NHS because of the unsafe environment. I started the With Woman Movement because I want fundamental change in how services are offered, staffed and managed in the UK. More than 1,000 midwives are joined by parents, NHS staff and others who share our concerns. We are not willing to wait years for a costly public inquiry about what is wrong. We are putting together low-cost ways of pooling what we know about maternity services and what needs to be done to make them safe.
I leave John o’Groats on 3 June on the first leg of a journey to Land’s End, gathering information about maternity issues and stories from local midwives and families. I will be joined by midwives, parents, nurses, doctors and community leaders as I make my way to Inverness. If you have a story or concern or idea to share, come and walk a mile with me or join me for a cuppa on a stop.
Victoria Rixon
Plymouth, Devon
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