Plans for new Brighton midwife-led maternity unit (From The Argus)
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Plans for new Brighton midwife-led maternity unit
5:50pm Thursday 25th February 2010 in News Exclusive By Siobhan Ryan, Health Reporter
Part of a children's hospital could be turned into a midwife-led maternity unit.
The Argus can reveal that managers at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust want to set aside an area of the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital in Brighton for the new department.
It will be a home-from-home environment with the capacity to handle up to 600 births a year.
The aim is to ease pressure on the busy main consultant-led unit at the neighbouring Royal Sussex County Hospital.
Currently, women in the city wanting to give birth in a dedicated midwife run centre have to travel 25 miles to Crowborough.
Hannah Sherlock, from the Brighton and Hove branch of the National Childbirth Trust, welcomed the plans.
A trust spokeswoman said: “We are still very much in the planning stage but there is a real will to provide a unit like this that will give women more of a choice about where to give birth.
“There are also plans to recruit midwives to provide the service.”
Comments(4)
Charismatic Andrew
says...
1:04pm Fri 26 Feb 10
Fantastic - So not only are they going to provide a new maternity unit, but they've also had the foresight to employ some midwives to fill it! Excellent Project Management.
Michelle McCann
says...
3:13pm Sat 27 Feb 10
David Wild Honey
says...
11:32pm Mon 1 Mar 10
We should focus on midwife-led natural birth before bricks and mortar. Mothers and fathers-to-be need to have a longer, closer relationship with midwives.
We need to empower midwives to encourage natural childbirth. If we don't change the system, we will simply end up with a plusher maternity ward, and the same high number of medical interventions. Over a quarter of Brighton hospital births are by caesarian section, vs only 2% of home births.
Let's hope the NHS planners talk to midwives, not management consultants, about what might be achieved with natural birth. Fewer surgical interventions will save money, too, to pay for more midwives.
The relationship between a true midwife-led maternity unit, and a standby surgical unit next door, could very positive.
pw24 says...
6:25pm Thu 25 Feb 10
i just hope the nimbys dont scupper this too!!