UK: Maternity Units Turning into Conveyor Belts
By Danell Swim
April 28, 2008
More than half of new mothers are being sent home from hospital within a day of giving birth.
The proportion has risen from 21 per cent to 51 per cent in 15 years.
Midwives said overstretched maternity units were turning into “conveyor belts” to cope with demand, and were forced to send exhausted new mothers home before they had properly recovered from labour or got to grips with basic baby care.
But parenting groups said many mothers found maternity units so busy, noisy and poorly staffed that they were desperate to be discharged as soon as possible.
Research carried out for The Sunday Telegraph shows that the average maternity stay has fallen by almost 12 hours in four years, at a time when the birth rate in England and Wales is at a 21-year high.
The change comes despite a doubling, over 15 years, in the proportion of caesarean section deliveries, surgery that requires several days for the mother to recover fully.
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