Maternity homes
Although many women gave birth in their own homes, maternity homes or lying-in hospitals grew up from the mid-18th century onwards. Opening in 1749, the British Lying-in Hospital in Holborn, London, was among the very first in the country. Founding more of these institutions around the country took longer; the first came to Liverpool nearly a century later, in 1841, and Nottingham had no maternity home until 1908.
The 1918 Maternity and Child Welfare Act compelled local authorities to provide maternity care for residents. Despite this, countrywide maternal mortality rates peaked in 1933, at 5.94 deaths per 1000 births.
More needed to be done. This drive to improve mother and child welfare led to maternity homes being established. In Scunthorpe a purpose- built maternity hospital, the Maternity Home, was opened in 1936 by Sir Kingsley Wood, then Minister for Health. The new state - of-the-art Maternity Home boasted 26 beds, six isolation beds, an operating theatre and labour ward. It also had an antenatal department, nursery for the newborns, as well as full staff quarters.
In July 1948, the home came under the umbrella of the newly formed National Health Service; before this time mothers had had to pay a fee for their deliveries at the Maternity Home. Now it was midwife-led, with the support of the mothers’ own GPs. The Scunthorpe Maternity Home was in use for almost 60 years before it was eventually demolished in 1994.