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Maternity & Newborn

Our vision for maternity and newborn care stated:

A woman will be able to contact a midwife as soon as she knows she is pregnant. The same midwife  will support her throughout her pregnancy.

Women will already know from their education the importance of a healthy diet, exercising, not misusing drugs and alcohol and not smoking during pregnancy.

When the time is right for the expectant mother, the midwife will discuss with her the choices of where she can have her baby. All women will be offered a choice and all maternity facilities will promote a philosophy of normality, natural labour and childbirth.

The safety of mother and child will be paramount so that all care will be provided within a network supported by strong neonatal services. If the baby requires special or intensive care, this will be provided within a clinical network as near to the mother’s home as possible.

Women will be encouraged to breastfeed their baby with support from trained practitioners.

 

Our priorities for change:

  • Improve the health of pregnant women through better health promotion services such as stop smoking support

  • Give women direct access to midwives during their pregnancy and in the run up to giving birth

  • Ensure there is a one-to-one midwife presence during labour and appropriate obstetrician cover for labour wards

  • Give women more choice over where they want to give birth.

 

Delivering our priorities in more challenging times

We have now entered a time of greater financial constraint which means we need to refresh the way we plan to continue to deliver our vision. We need to prioritise the changes we can make that will have the biggest impact on driving up quality while at the same time help make our local NHS more efficient.

In the area of maternity and newborn, the East Midlands health community is concentrating on normalising birth, that is to reduce the amount of unecessary caesarean sections that are carried out which will improve outcomes from mothers and their babies but also make better use of NHS resources. Find out more.

 

The evidence for change:

  • The number of live births across the East Midlands has steadily risen from 45,000 in 2002 to 50,717 in 2006 but of these only 2.5% were delivered at home

  • First time mothers are generally older than before. Assisted fertilisation is rising and with it the number of twins and multiple pregnancies. Maternal obesity is also on the increase

  • In 2006/07, 21% of all births in the East Midlands were caesarean sections

  • The proportion of local women who start breastfeeding is just below 70%

new mum and twins

Other useful links:

Find out how we're transforming Neonatal services

Find out about the regional normalising births workstream

The King's Fund Safer Births Programme