Who are we?
Airedale mums was established by mums and mums-to-be with the aim of improving antenatal care and birth experience for women under Airedale’s Maternity Services within the Bradford and Airedale Primary Care Trust.
What do we want?
In a nutshell, we want three things; firstly for all women to be given support for and true choice in where and how they give birth. Secondly for every woman to have continuity of care and thirdly to be treated with dignity and respect.
All women to be given support for and choice in where and how they give birth
We want:
- Mums and dads to be provided with full, objective, evidence-based information, using up to date research about options available, in order to allow women to make informed choices about where, when and how they give birth;
Continuity of care
Women birthing with a known midwife are:
- more likely to have a normal birth
- less likely to have forceps or CS
- less likely to need drugs
- likely to have shorter labours
- more likely to breastfeed
- more likely to be happy with the experience
- less likely to suffer postnatal depression.
All of which costs a lot less than the alternative and results in many more mothers beginning the difficult journey into motherhood in a very positive frame of mind – quite satisfied with their birth and early feeding experiences.
Dignity, respect & equality
- Respect to be given to the pregnancy & birth process; its huge variability, timescales and individual nature. There are as many variables in birth experience as there are in babies and in mothers. Differences in age; weight; fitness; culture; medical history; pain threshold; and relationship situation can all lead to vastly differing birth experiences for mothers. Having a “couple of sizes fits all” policy is never going to be the appropriate model for excellent provision of maternity care. There needs to be much greater acknowledgement, and respect for, the need for real flexibility in ensuring a positive birth experience.
- Support given to mums (and dads) in decision making and respect for whatever choices they make – even when those decisions do not fit with PCT/ hospital protocol or policy, or what the individual care giver considers to be the best course of action.
- Normal, natural, lo-tech birth, without unnecessary medical intervention (and this includes unnecessary induction) to be the normal expectation and starting point, rather than the exception, and be accessible to all mums, rather than just those that know about, and are willing and able to pay for independent midwives
- Maternity carers to understand that their role is to support mums in birthing their babies not managing the birth directly.
Our position on midwife shortages
- We are aware that the reason given for many of the shortcomings in maternity services is a lack of midwives, staff absence, turnover levels etc.
- We recognise with things run as they are right now, there are not enough midwives available to deliver the services they need to.
- We feel that instead of focusing on meeting targets and following standardised procedures, there should be more focus on midwives giving one to one, tailored care (mass customisation of care?); continuity of care; and a reduced medicalisation of childbirth. This would in turn free up resources by reducing the impact on delivery of services downstream (for example, there would be less obstetric intervention, less drugs and shorter stays in hospital and less post natal care e.g. for post natal depression). Effectively, the PCT & hospitals may be able to do more with less – which could be very useful in the current economic climate.
- We feel that part of the reason for the lack of midwives, high turnover of midwives etc is that they are caught up in a negative cycle. They are over worked within an inflexible system that does not allow for them to provide the kind of care set out above to a standard of professional excellence at each and every birth. This situation inevitably leads to dissatisfaction from birthing mothers and from fathers, and then to complaints to the PCT. Such complaints and immense dissatisfaction from parents then leads to job dissatisfaction amongst midwives who then leave/feel negatively towards their job/are susceptible to adopting less than professional attitudes as they feel as though they are being routinely criticized.
