Natural Birth

Read all about it….! Daily Mail headline reports babies being born in hospital corridors

Today I walked past a newsagents and this Daily Mail headline shouted out at me...

The babies born in hospital corridors: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets

So I reluctantly paid my 50p to read the article, here is an excerpt of some of the statistics quoted:

The lives of mothers and babies are being put at risk as births in locations ranging from lifts to toilets - even a caravan - went up 15 per cent last year to almost 4,000.

Health chiefs admit a lack of maternity beds is partly to blame for the crisis, with hundreds of women in labour being turned away from hospitals because they are full.

Latest figures show that over the past two years there were at least:

63 births in ambulances and 608 in transit to hospitals;
117 births in A&E departments, four in minor injury units and two in medical assessment areas;
115 births on other hospital wards and 36 in other unspecified areas including corridors;
399 in parts of maternity units other than labour beds, including postnatal and antenatal wards and reception areas….

...Babies were born in offices, lifts, toilets and a caravan, according to the Freedom of Information data for 2007 and 2008 from 117 out of 147 trusts which provide maternity services.

The upshot of the article is really that women give birth in many different locations, some of this is due to lack of midwives or beds, some is simply due to the time the baby chose to make his or her appearance and some of it is due to the 20% rise in births. Unfortunately the article does not distinguish between these route causes.

I believe the purpose of the article is probably to apply political pressure for additional focus in this area which I completely agree is needed, however using these kinds of unbalanced headlines has a huge impact on those who are pregnant and are about to go through what should be an amazing joyful experience.

I remember that when I was pregnant I banned myself from looking at articles such as these as I recognised that it was maintaining an element of anxiety and that this may actually impact the outcome of my labour. I wonder if the journalists who create these reports realise that they could actually be going some way to impact the outcome of a birth?

Utlimately, the key message to take from these reports is that it's important to feel as though you are in control of your birth experience and if being at home helps this then that's great and you remove a lot of the issues described in the report, if you are more relaxed in hospital then that is where you should choose to be. To be more in control in hospital I believe it is absolutely key to have a birth companion with whom you have shared and agreed how you would like your birth experience to be and what decisions you would want should anything not quite go to plan. That way, you can be in control via your birth companion and you can focus on the important job of birthing your baby calmly and gently at a location where you feel safest. If you are interested, we have a free guide for birth companions which can really help in these situations.

Interestingly a darkened lift with just you, your midwife and birth companion may be fantastic (depending on the lift music I guess!), a toilet is also a good location to rest whilst in labour and we experience our natural expulsive relfex there so it's no wonder babies are born here. As for a caravan, I would have loved to give birth in a caravan! I'll perhaps jot that idea down just in case there's a next time…

Yours for calmer births, more often,

Source: Daily Mail.
Photo credit: rytc