Midwives back down on natural childbirth

MIDWIVES are backing down on their decade-long campaign for natural childbirth – because it makes women feel like failures.

Pregnant women will no longer be told they should give birth without medical intervention as part of an overhaul of professional guidance.

It comes after an inquiry into infant deaths at one trust found midwives’ desire for ‘ normal births at any cost’ had contributed to unsafe deliveries.

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) announced they want to avoid giving the impression that interventions such as caesareans and epidurals are abnormal.

Chief executive Cathy Warwick denied that the ‘campaign for normal birth’, which has run since 2005, has compromised the safety of women and unborn children. But she admitted it had ‘created the wrong idea’, and would now be wrapped up.

‘There was a danger that if you just talk about normal births, and particularly if you call it a campaign, it ... sounds as if you’re only interested in women who have a vaginal birth without intervention,’ she told The Times.

‘What we don’t want to do is in any way contribute to any sense that a woman has failed because she hasn’t had a normal birth. Unfortunately that seems to be how some women feel.’

Figures show around four in ten women give birth ‘normally’ without a caesarean, induction, instruments or epidural – down from six in ten 30 years ago. Despite the rise in recent years in mothers who are older or overweight – factors which both cause more complications during birth – the RCM has until now argued that more women should be giving birth without interventions.

Their drive attracted criticism following an inquiry into the death of 11 babies and one mother at Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust between 2004 and 2013. It found the midwives’ desire for normal births ‘ at any cost’ had contributed to the unsafe deliveries.

It said the midwives believed ‘in all sincerity they were processing the agenda as dictated at the time to uphold normality’.

Professor Warwick argued the RCM was not to blame, saying she was sceptical any midwife would have taken the campaign to mean they must ‘push normal birth beyond the point of safety’.

However, the RCM reviewed its campaign following the scandal, and Professor Warwick has since concluded it must be replaced by a broader ‘ better births initiative’ of advice for midwives.

She said the initiative would ‘make absolutely sure ... we did use language and terminology that prevented people from thinking that we’re going out there saying to midwives, “You need to get a normal birth at all costs”’.

Doctors have welcomed the change. Lesley Regan, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said it is important to stress that ‘no woman should be made to feel their birth ... is “abnormal” because they needed to have an intervention’.