Pressure on services as mothers get older

RECORD NUMBERS of births to older mothers are putting maternity units under pressure – with the NHS short of around 2,600 midwives, a report found.

The number of babies born in England and Wales to women in their 30s and 40s was up 6,859 in 2014, according to the state of maternity services report 2015 from the Royal College of Midwives (RCM).

Births to women in their early 30s (30-34) have been above 200,000 in each year since 2010 – a level not seen since at least the 1930s.

In every year since 2006, more than 110,000 babies have been born to women in their late 30s (35-39). This is a level of births not seen since just after the Second World War, and four times the level of the late 1970s (1977: 25,527), the RCM said.

For women in their 40s, births have been above 29,000 for four years in a row. These are again numbers not seen since the years after the Second World War, and are almost five times the level of the late 1970s (1977: 5,988).

With 661,496 babies born in England last year, almost 100,000 higher than in 2001, the RCM said in the report that the NHS is short of around 2,600 midwives.

The shortage of midwives is made worse by the ageing of the midwifery workforce. The number of midwives in England aged 50 or over has doubled from 4,057 in 2001 to 8,169 in 2014.

Cathy Warwick, RCM chief executive, said: “All women deserve the very best care, regardless of the age at which they give birth. Women have every right to give birth later in life, and we support that. But typically, older women will require more care during pregnancy, and that means more midwives are needed.

“It is deeply frustrating for midwives that they cannot provide the quality of maternity care that they want to deliver because they are so short-staffed.”