Herts woman urges better treatment of midwives
Emiliana Hall says first-time parents are having bad experiences because midwives are overstretched
A woman from Hertfordshire is speaking out after research conducted by her company, The Mindful Baby Group, found that a fifth of women felt angry that their birthing experience hadn't gone to plan.
Of the 1,001 parents surveyed, almost a quarter said they were seen by various medical professionals during their pregnancy, 17% said they felt unprepared for birth, and 16% said they felt neglected by the midwifery team.
"We're seeing midwives leave in droves"
But Emiliana Hall says it's not because care teams want to neglect their patients. Instead, they: "haven't got the time and resources to be able to dedicate that really important one to one time to their parents, and give them that time that they need."
She adds: "Midwives are leaving the profession for many reasons, mainly because of the way they're being stretched and treated.
"It's a cycle of disaster because they're not being valued and therefore they haven't got the time to care for the people they want to care for. They're tired, overwhelmed, and being stretched and pulled in all directions.
"So, human nature says that's not going to be a nice place to work, so we're seeing midwives leave in droves."
To fix the problem Ms Hall says we need: "To get more midwives trained and value them for the incredible job that they need to do.
She adds: "We need to train them in a way that isn't highly medicalised at every turn because, the reality is, we need them to keep us safe when needed but there's a massive lack of one to one support."
Midwives to be balloted over strike action
Earlier this year the Royal College of Midwives announced it would be balloting members in England and Wales on industrial action on the 11th of November.
The ballot will run for four weeks and the RMC is urging members to vote yes after it rejected the government's pay award which did not line up with inflation.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “We value the hard work of NHS staff and are working hard to support them, including by giving over 1 million NHS workers a pay rise of at least £1,400 this year.
“Industrial action is a matter for unions and we urge them to carefully consider the potential impacts on patients.”
The importance of the post-natal period
According to Ms Hall, a difficult birth experience can then leave to a difficult post-natal period.
A quarter of women admitted to feeling overwhelmed after birth, citing sleep and body confidence as some of their struggles.
Over half also thought they weren't doing enough as a new parent and 35% were concerned with projecting their own insecurities onto their child.
Ms Hall says the post-natal period is so important and can often be overlooked: "A lot of people think 'oh as long as the baby gets here safely, that's all that matters.'
"Actually, if a parent's traumatised, doesn't feel supported, or isn't able to have the space to recover properly from a birth, that impacts the baby. So it's so important that we put more emphasis on looking after parents after the birth too."
She says the best thing expectant parents can do is prepare themselves by reading, watching, and talking ahead of the birth.