Blog

‘Normal birth’ campaign abandoned by Royal College of Midwives

This article was published on August 16th, 2017

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has dropped its ‘normal birth’ campaign after admitting it may have been misleading to prospective mothers.

Content including ‘Top 10 tips for a normal birth’ has been deleted from the website, and the RCM have redacted the campaign, instead, they aim to focus on a more evidence based ‘better births’ initiative.

This latest development comes in the wake of the RCM coming under heavy criticism from the press and patient groups after it materialised that poor maternity care had been given at Morecambe Bay which led to the avoidable deaths of 11 babies and 1 mother.

Patient groups and medical professionals have also raised their concerns that midwives could be putting too much onus on mothers to undergo natural births to the point where complications and concerns were ignored, leading to the inappropriate management of mothers and endangerment of newborn babies.

The RCM’s head of quality and standards, Mandy Forrester, confirmed that the campaign had been abandoned saying that they “no longer have a Campaign for Normal Birth. We now have an initiative called the Better Births Initiative, the focus of which is ensuring the best birth for all women.”

She also added: “We have withdrawn the top 10 tips from our website. They are down permanently, we don’t plan to relaunch them,”

Safer births in Britain have been a Government priority since 2015, with leaders aiming to reduce the number of stillbirths and baby brain injuries by 50% by 2030.

Cathy Warwick who is the Chief Executive of the RCM, said: “What we were interested in was helping our members to achieve as good a birth as possible and there was a danger that if you just talk about normal births and particularly if you call it a campaign, it kind of sounds as if you’re only interested in women who have a vaginal birth without intervention and we were very clear that we cared about far more than just that.

She also added: “I am very sceptical that any midwife would ever have looked at what we’re saying under the heading of a normal birth campaign and thought ‘this is telling me I must push normal birth beyond the point of safety.”

With any clinical negligence compensation claim, it is vital to find a solicitor that has expertise in this complex area.

Our team works with the country’s leading medical experts in the area of obstetric negligence to ensure that we offer the very best legal advice.

If you or a loved one has been unfortunate enough to have experienced poor medical care from medical staff then contact us now at Thorneycroft Solicitors today for a free no-obligation assessment of your case on 0800 1979 345 or complete our online enquiry form.

Review us on

Subscribe to our newsletter

Site by: eclipse marketing

Registration Office. Thorneycroft Solicitors Ltd, Bridge Street Mills, Bridge Street, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 6QA. Registered in England No. 4932249 The term `director`, denotes a shareholder or director of the company or an employee or consultant who is a lawyer with equivalent standing and qualifications. Authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, SRA ID: 406439. Calls may be recorded for security & training purposes.

‘Normal birth’ campaign abandoned by Royal College of Midwives

Blog

Archives