There is no doubt that for most women in this country, childbirth remains a safe and happy experience. But it is also true that for too many, it is a highly risky and frankly horrific experience.
Stories abound of mothers-to-be left alone in labour, sometimes refused pain relief or surgical intervention, putting their babies’ health or even lives in danger.
The statistics make grisly reading: an average of 11 babies are stillborn every day in NHS hospitals, according to research published recently in The Lancet.
Unlike other high-income countries, it’s a figure that has remained largely unchanged over the past ten years — putting Britain on a par with Belarus and Estonia.
More than £27 million in compensation was paid in 2008 by London hospitals alone for childbirth cases.
Indeed, a shocking 60 per cent of all payments made by the NHS Litigation Authority relate to obstetrics.
In June this year, an unprecedented police investigation was launched into the deaths of five babies and two mothers at Furness General Hospital in Cumbria. And last weekend it was revealed another baby’s death at the hospital is also to be looked into. So what is going on?
Midwives point to an understaffed, overstretched system dealing with both a rising birth rate and a growing number of more complicated deliveries as a result of obesity, older mothers and multiple births.
The Royal College of Midwives warned last week that existing ‘massive midwife shortages’ will soon worsen as maternity hospitals face ‘falling budgets and pressure to cut staff further, despite a rapidly rising birth rate’.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
