Maintain pressure on reforms to protect NHSMaternity units rewarded for innovation
Justice secretary Jack Straw helped NHS maternity staff from his constituency celebrate their award for innovative service earlier this month.
Eight outstanding maternity units won awards from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Maternity for their inspiring work in improving localservices. The Blackburn and Burnley Unit at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust won the ‘Normality of Childbirth Award’ for successfully increasing home birth rates and use of water birth.
The unit has produced an information leaflet on water birth and midwives attended water birth workshops to develop skills and gain confidence in this area.
Home births are also actively discussed with women using the service to give them as much choice in where to have their baby as possible. Women choosing a home environment were supported and encouraged to have a normal birth, and midwives did extra on-call time to facilitate wishes, even when already stretched in their role.
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Readers' comments (1)
Charlotte Hall | 17-Jul-2009 12:41 pm
This is good news, however down the road in Preston and chorley the story of homebirths are completely different. The midwives have tried to put me off a homebirth twice now and at 33 weeks have not discussed any birthing options like pain relief or position or emergency procedure. I get the impression that the midwives in this area are just too busy to accomodate natural homebirths.
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