It’s been 42 years since I gave birth to my first son and 38 years since the second one came along, and I look back at that time with awe, joy and amazement at just how brilliant the maternity services were.
As soon as my first pregnancy was confirmed by my GP, I was allocated a midwife who looked after me and my unborn son throughout. She came to check on me every month at my home in Southampton, where I worked at the time, and I went for regular scans at the Princess Anne Maternity Hospital, attached to Southampton General. I was invited to see the delivery ward and meet the chief midwife, registrar and consultant. I was not a private patient, so everything I got was standard NHS practice.
I’d been reading a book by the childbirth campaigner Sheila Kitzinger in the run up to my labour and, even though I hadn’t been able to follow her advice on the pleasure of home delivery – at 33, I was deemed ‘too old’ – I followed her guidance on making your birth plan very clear.
I knew I wanted as natural a birth as possible. I wanted the delivery room to be dark with gentle music playing. I made my plan clear to the doctors and midwives but assured them I would not stick religiously to my plan if anything went wrong.
The staff listened to everything I said and did their utmost to make it all work. Ed was born at 5pm, 14 hours after I went into labour. I was given the best care possible throughout, went home after 24 hours in the hospital and, for three months afterwards, was visited regularly by my midwife. It could not have been a more comforting experience.
Four years later, during my second pregnancy, I decided to ask doctors about the possibility of giving birth at home again.
We’d moved to London and my GP referred me to a consultant obstetrician at St George’s Hospital in south London.
By then 37, I was ready for a fight to get my way – but didn’t need it. The doctor examined me, read through my notes and said: ‘Fine. I can’t see a problem. You can have your baby at home.’ My antenatal midwife came to visit me regularly and I was even assigned a GP who had experience of home delivery. On my due date, my husband David and I were shopping in M&S when I felt the unmistakable discomfort of imminent labour.
Liliwen Iris Thomas with her parents Emily Brazier and Rhodri Thomas, who have launched a civil action against Cardiff and Vale University Health Board after Liliwen died from perinatal asphyxia – a lack of oxygen
At home, the midwives came to check on me at once. All went to plan and Charlie came out like a rocket. Again, the maternity services could not have been better.
You would hope that, four decades on, medical care has only improved. To this country’s shame, the opposite is true.
I thank heaven I don’t have to endure the state of maternity services now. I would be terrified at the thought of giving birth today. I’ve heard so many stories from young colleagues who’ve been to hell and back. Things are so bad that the NHS now faces a £27billion bill for maternity failings in England. How have we come to a position where women are being failed more than ever at their most vulnerable?
I wanted to cry when I read about the experience of Emily Brazier at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. She was admitted for induction in 2022. She was given pethidine, an opioid similar to morphine, codeine and unrestricted access to gas and air. Her partner was not present as she was not yet in active labour.
After the drugs had been administered, she fell asleep but was not checked. She had been left alone. At around 2am medical staff found her baby, Liliwen, had been born unattended and was in very ‘poor condition’. She died around 20 hours later from perinatal asphyxia – a lack of oxygen.
At Liliwen’s inquest this month, the coroner concluded she had died after her mother was left unattended by midwives and gave birth in a coma. Her lawyer said ‘this tragic case highlights concerns regarding understaffing on maternity wards’.
Then there’s the shocking evidence of racism within the maternity services.
A survey published by the British Medical Journal this year revealed one in four black women has experienced racial discrimination by medical professionals during pregnancy, while a report by Fivexmore, a community interest company, showed black women are 2.3 times more likely to die than white women in pregnancy, labour and after giving birth.
Black women are being subjected to appalling racist treatment on NHS maternity wards, the Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said.
I remember covering this awful story nearly ten years ago on Woman’s Hour. Why, so long after it became public knowledge, has it not been fixed?
The coroner at baby Liliwen’s inquest demanded a review of the use of gas and air in labour after her death. Her mother had free access to it – but it’s not the gas and air that’s dangerous. It’s the lack of care on the part of midwives and doctors that caused Liliwen to die.
Streeting is aware of all this and must make maternity care a priority in the NHS if he’s not to be accused of letting women languish, as so often happens, at the bottom of his to do list.
Like Anne, I’ll work till I drop
Like me, Princess Anne is a 1950 baby and will soon achieve her three-quarter century. Next month she’ll celebrate her 75th birthday and says she won’t stop working until she’s 90. We agree on that one, Ma’am. I hate the idea of retiring. Retirement is a dirty word. Happy birthday and keep on keeping on.
Princess Anne during a visit to Vajira Pillayar Kovil Hindu temple in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 2024
Another A-list invasion
We saw how resentful the inhabitants of Venice were when Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez took over the city with their wedding.
Now a small village in Oxfordshire is to be overrun by A-list guests at the nuptials of Eve Jobs, the daughter of Apple founder, the late Steve Jobs. The estimated cost of her ceremony is £5million, and guests will include Kamala Harris, the Kardashians and Elton John – who is apparently being paid £1million to perform.
Eve may have been the Apple of her father’s eye, but I doubt the residents of rural Oxfordshire will be best pleased when the entire village is forced into lockdown this weekend.
Eve Jobs attends the 2022 Vanity Fair Oscar Party
I want that hay fever tablet now!
I am still sniffling and sneezing with my hay fever that won’t go away or be eased by the drugs currently on offer. Roll on the new immunotherapy tablet that it’s said will train the immune system over three years to tolerate tree pollen. I don’t care how long it takes to finally have an effect – hay fever this year has made my life a misery. I want this tablet and I want it now.
Tradeswomen – plumbers, plasterers, carpenters – are said to be swamped with work because clients feel safer with them in the home. I wish I could find some near here. No more hearing ‘Mornin’ darlin’.’ No more sexist slurs asking what would
my husband want done. And no more surprise that, yes,
I’ll be the one paying the bill.
