Government to offer 'full range' of birth choice

Pregnant women are to be offered a full range of birthing choices, including the option to have a home birth, under new plans announced by the government.

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt launched the new maternity strategy on Tuesday. By the end of 2009, it is planned that women will be able to choose whether to go directly to a midwife or via a doctor to access maternity care; choose between midwifery ante-natal care or care led by both doctors and midwives; choose a place of birth from home births, giving birth in a midwifery unit or with midwives and doctors in hospital; and choose how and where to access post-natal care.

Commenting on the strategy, Ms Hewitt said: "Our commitment set out today is to deliver "gold standard" maternity services for women. In practice, this will mean that care is designed around the needs of women and their partners from the very beginning of pregnancy through to providing much better and more personal post-natal care.

"The new plan offers minimum guarantees about the level of services that women should expect and which will be used as levers to drive up standards across the country to the levels of the very best."

However, the Liberal Democrats said that the plans could only be realised if more midwives were recruited. The party's health spokesperson Sandra Gidley said: "Many more midwives need to be recruited if these plans will ever be more than a pipe dream. In the current financial climate, is this really possible?

"We've seen repeated evidence from around the country that maternity services are being cut in a desperate bid by trusts to balance the books. Where are they now going to find the money to recruit all these extra staff?

"The government must be very careful. Giving birth at home should not be encouraged for all mothers as a cheap option. It should be available to those who want it and must come with the guaranteed support of fully qualified midwives."

(KMcA/SP)