Women want choice of midwife-led care, as promised in the maternity strategy

All women deserve access to high quality, continuous maternity care. That's not the same as 'going private', writes midwife Jeannine Webster

Unlike general medicine, most women accessing maternity care are healthy and don’t require specialised expertise — they could be cared for by midwives both in hospital and in community clinics. 

I gave birth to my three children over 30 years ago, one emergency caesarean and two vaginal births. I didn’t understand how much these experiences impacted me at the time; what I did know was that maternity care could be better. Many years and one hip replacement later, at 41 years of age, I began my journey to become a midwife. After four years, I qualified in 2011.

For 12 years of my career, I worked in a voluntary hospital providing antenatal care to those attending semi-private and, in later years, private care. For someone committed to the philosophy of midwifery-led care, it might seem a strange choice to make.