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Mothers will receive one-to-one care from a named midwife during labour and birth as part of government plans to combat postnatal depression. Women who have a miscarriage or stillbirth and parents who are forced to cope with the death of a baby will also be offered increased support from the NHS. Under the plans, health [...]

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As Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, prepares to outline a package of measures aimed at improving care in pregnancy and the early stages of motherhood, Annie Francis, chief executive of a local midwifery service says women benefit from having a dedicated midwife.   Neighbourhood Midwives, is a NHS-funded social enterprise based in Wandsworth, south London, [...]

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The survey also found that one in five women were not offered a choice of where to have their baby, despite this being a key pledge in maternity care. The Royal College of Midwives said the findings highlighted the shortage of midwives and called for 5,000 more to be appointed.   The Coalition has been accused [...]

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One in four women do not have  a midwife present during the crucial moments of giving birth, according to a new study. The research, for the Royal College of Midwives, reveals that women across the country are being let down by under-staffed maternity services. On average, a quarter of women said they did not have  [...]

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When seven-year-old Chloe Dennis’ mother went into labour, she didn’t call the midwife… she did the job herself. The youngster was awoken by mother Rachael’s screams as contractions began in the middle of the night. With nobody else around, she leapt into action and grabbed a towel to keep her newborn sister clean and warm. [...]

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More than 100 mothers have died in childbirth in London in the last five years, twice the rate in the rest of the country, exposing a crisis in maternity care in the capital. The maternal death rate in the capital has doubled since 2005 and demands “urgent attention”, specialists say. There were 11 deaths in [...]

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When the police ring Dr Agnes Géreb’s doorbell, late on a Thursday night, she quickly hunches forward on her sofa in an instinctive gesture of self-protection. Then, with infinite tiredness, she shuffles to the front door. A police officer impatiently demands her signature and disappears into the darkness. Saturday will be the 494th day of [...]

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Seven midwives at a hospital in Northumberland have either just had a baby or are currently pregnant. Three midwives at Wansbeck Hospital in Ashington have already given birth while four more are pregnant with babies due in the summer. The women say they are all helping each other through what has been an extremely emotional process. Janice [...]

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A maternity ward has experienced a spectacular baby boom after nine members of staff fell pregnant. Seven midwives, a consultant, and a secretary in the maternity unit at Wansbeck Hospital, in Ashington, Northumberland, have recently given birth or are expecting. The flurry of pregnancies has left staff – and patients – at the hospital stunned, with [...]

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A growing number of hospitals say they are fielding requests from families to have children present during delivery, with many believing the experience makes older siblings less jealous. In several studies, researchers have surveyed parents about the impact on siblings, and found mixed results, the Boston Globe reports. Some parents said young children were scared by the [...]

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Incompetent: Midwife Diana Warwick, 56, faces being struck off after she was found guilty of 30 blunders A midwife dropped a baby on its head and nearly electrocuted a woman who was giving birth, in a series of terrifying blunders. Diana Warwick, 56, faces being struck off or suspended after she was found guilty of [...]

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Home births are the cheapest option for the NHS when the mother already has children, a study claims today. Second-time mothers who have a planned birth outside hospital need fewer interventions, such as forceps delivery, and it is just as safe for the baby. The study found it would also be cheaper for first-time mothers to give [...]

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Planned births at home and in midwifery units are more cost-effective than giving birth in hospital, particularly for women who have given birth before, University of Oxford research suggests. The research, in the British Medical Journal, compared the costs of giving birth in different places and the health outcomes for mother and baby. More than 60,000 [...]

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A third mother has died at a scandal-hit hospital maternity unit which is being investigated by detectives. Five babies have also apparently died as a result of alleged poor care at Furness General Hospital in Barrow. Health chiefs are now investigating the death of 26-year-old Carly Scott who passed away last Wednesday. She had been [...]

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A Call the Midwife star has revealed that she blew in the faces of babies so they would cry during filming and appear to be newborns. Jessica Raine, who plays nurse Jenny Lee in the hit BBC1 drama, said she felt ‘evil’ after she was forced to keep the babies awake during birth scenes. The [...]

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A mother-to-be was forced to have her baby in a hospital car park after being turned away from her local maternity ward because there were no spare midwives. Ania Martin, 38, and her partner Dean were told to head to make the two-mile trip from Leeds General Infirmary to the nearby St James’s Hospital in [...]

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Whilst most pensioners would be content just reaching their 100th birthday, one senior citizen wanted to celebrate the landmark day by visiting the hospital where she trained as a nurse and midwife 79 years ago. And Violet Withington was granted her wish when she was given a special tour of City Hospital in Birmingham ahead [...]

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Two Roman Catholic midwives have lost a legal battle to avoid taking part in abortion procedures because of their “conscientious objections”. Midwifery sisters Mary Doogan, 57, and Concepta Wood, 51, said being forced to supervise staff taking part in abortions violated their human rights. The women had sought to challenge NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde [...]

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There have been calls for a return to the 1950′s approach to maternity care, where mothers knew their midwives and where babies were born at home. Some areas have introduced one-to-one care for expectant mums, and have seen the number of homebirths increase, as Graham Satchell reports. via BBC News – Calls for a return [...]

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Bernadette Patricia McDaid, 49, allegedly told the woman: ‘Your baby looks very white. He is very fair. People may ask if you are the nanny.’ McDaid, employed by the Newham NHS Trust, said during the home visit on January 31, 2009: ‘People may think you have had an egg donation. Have you had an egg [...]

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The official statistics, released on Tuesday, show there were 896 more midwives working in November last year than in May 2010, a 4.4 per cent increase. There were also 4,175 more doctors (up 4.0 per cent) according to the provisional workforce statistics, compiled by the NHS Information Centre. Over the same period, the number of [...]

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The TV drama series Call the Midwife, which ends its run this evening, is based on the real-life memoir of Jennifer Worth, who worked as a domiciliary midwife in London’s Docklands in the 1950s. The BBC1 drama brings to life the vibrant, gritty resilience of the overcrowded slum-dwellers. The midwife teams of the newly formed [...]

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Home birth, natural childbirth, midwife-led care. It is a very modern approach to having a baby – but it’s also how things were done in the 1950s. The experiences of midwives then have been brought to life in Call the Midwife, the BBC One dramatisation of the memoirs of Jenny Worth, who worked as a [...]

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Every Sunday evening as the clock strikes eight, the Sisters of the Anglican Community of St John the Divine take a vow of silence. For one hour each week, they sit in quiet contemplation, huddled in a circle in the living room of their shared house. But this is no religious ceremony. Instead of prayer [...]

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Sarah Alder spent months planning for her home birth. But what she hadn’t planned for was four inches of snowfall just as she went into labour – making it impossible for her midwife to reach her in time. First-time-dad, Steve Watson, called the midwife when his wife went into labour early on Sunday morning – [...]

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At my all-male boarding school, a group of us discovered with horror that our maths teacher had a home-video recording of his wife giving birth. It was not so much the footage that traumatised our adolescent selves, but the idea that this man who bored us rigid with trigonometry on Monday afternoons thought it a [...]

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Along with 8.6 million other viewers, I was gripped by Sunday night’s second episode of Call The Midwife — which made me fervently thankful I didn’t have to give birth in the Fifties. No detail of the brutal business is spared, from the wince-making horrors of enemas — administered, terrifyingly, via a glass tube — [...]

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Midwives are present at most births and support women and their families through some of the most emotional experiences of their lives. Women talk to their midwives; stories of love, loss and family life abound. So, as a working midwife, it was always a mystery to me why midwives – and birth itself – were [...]

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Whenever television commissioners need a fresh dose of life-saving drama the call has traditionally gone out for dashing doctors and handsome vets. But now the Royal College of Midwives is braced for a rush of applicants after the success of a BBC drama that has placed medicine’s “unsung heroes” firmly in the spotlight. Call The [...]

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The medical establishment declared its outright opposition to the Tories’ health reforms last night. Unions representing nurses and midwives called on Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to scrap his plans, claiming they threaten patient safety. The Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives demanded ministers drop the entire bill, which is currently going [...]

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A period drama about the gritty business of midwifery? It’s hardly your typical Sunday night fare. Call the Midwife follows the grim toil of a young midwife working in 1950s east London and sounds, on the face of it, like an old-fashioned version of One Born Every Minute, the Channel 4 documentary series set in [...]

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No woman ever forgets her midwife. Ask anyone who’s ever given birth, and they will respond with an instant snapshot: ‘She was amazing’, ‘She was a godsend’. I’ve also, on occasion, heard the phrase ‘She was a cow’, yet midwives sear themselves into the psyche. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2083728/Why-Miranda-Harts-condoms-sent-BBC-panic–debt-I-owe-slightly-batty-East-End-midwife.html#ixzz1ixJKTpLk via Why Miranda Hart’s condoms sent the [...]

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Policeman says: ‘We thought they were having a domestic – then we realised she was having a baby’

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‘The paramedics and doctors joked he should get a job as a midwife’

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A midwife has delivered her own baby daughter at home with the help of her mother’s make-up mirror.

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Two midwives were arrested for practicing without licenses after a baby died while they were assisting the mother with a water birth in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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Nurses and health care assistants make up 34 per cent of posts earmarked to be cut, finds RCN study

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More than 1,500 nursing and midwifery posts have been lost in the Scottish NHS in the past year, new figures said.

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They’re at the sharp end of NHS cuts, the rise in Caesareans is making their work more difficult – and now the birth rate is soaring, too. Charlotte Philby finds a profession labouring to keep up

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A widower today told how his dreams were ‘snatched away’ by negligent midwives after his wife and baby died due to failings by hospital staff.

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Why is the National Institute for Clinical Excellence proposing to allow the 750,000 women who give birth every year to have a costly procedure which, in most cases, will be unnecessary?

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Nurse guilty of misconduct relating to 30 separate allegations

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Special care baby charity Bliss warns about qualifications of some nurses and midwives in hospital neonatal units

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Senior midwives are expecting to cut staff numbers next year, despite not having the resources at the moment to deal with England’s rising birth rate.

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A former midwife from the north east of Scotland has left £1.6m to a multiple sclerosis charity.

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Mothers and babies are being put at risk by the craze for collecting blood from the umbilical cord to protect against future illnesses, doctors and midwives warn.

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A senior doctor at a scandal-hit maternity unit where police are investigating the deaths of five babies and two mothers warned managers that midwives were ignoring instructions and telling doctors ‘not to interfere’ in births.

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A dangerous shortage of midwives is putting the lives of mothers and babies at risk, experts have warned.

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Parts of England are facing dangerously high shortages of midwives as Britain’s birthrate rockets, according to the Royal College of Midwives.

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A singer who is at the top of the singles charts is still carrying on with her day job as an NHS midwife.

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