More Midwives in UK a Bad Thing?
By Danell Swim
February 27, 2008
I agree that there should be sufficient midwives to meet the obstetric needs of the women in this country, and I agree that those midwives should be paid in line with their extremely high level of skill within the nursing profession. On almost every other matter relating to childbirth, I find myself opposed to the prevailing maternity trend in this country.
I do not agree that “medicalisation” is a bad thing in labour, or that “communication” and “quality, one-to-one support of a midwife” (I’m quoting from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines) are any kind of substitute for pain relief. It makes my blood boil when I read that “epidurals can slow labour down” (from the BBC website, but you will hear that from almost every source), as if the figures are mysterious and unknowable, when studies have shown that epidurals slow each phase of labour by about 20 minutes.
I could write a symphony on how irrelevant 20 minutes is when you’re not in pain, compared with how unbearably long it is when you are. But many women do insist on anti-medicalised, scented candle-style birthing experience, and the last thing anyone needs either before or during labour is to be bullied, so I am resolved to stay out of the entire debate.
What I cannot let go, however, is the latest reporting on the shortage of midwives. The government is seeking to attract 4,000 more midwives to the NHS because there is a shortage. At the weekend, it appeared in the Telegraph that the “huge rise in caesareans” was down to hospitals “struggling to cope with the rising numbers of older mothers, obese women and IVF patients requiring extra attention”. In the Mail, on Monday, this was repeated.
This is statistical analysis so poor that it can only be wilfully mendacious. Technically, it is true that there are more older mothers, more of us of all ages are obese, and IVF brings about more multiple births. But let’s just go through it, quickly - the birth rate went up by 11% between 2000 and 2006. That is a difference of 63,000 births in a year. The number of midwives has declined, and now stands at 18,862 full-timers. This is why the average maternity unRead more.
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