Pregnant women are demanding NHS trusts change their policies to allow birth partners to attend pregnancy scans and be with them in all stages of labour, in ALL hospitals.
Today MP Alicia Kearns and Big Brother winner Kate Lawler are amongst pregnant women taking to social media to share photos of #ButNotMaternity on their pregnancy bumps. It’s the latest stage of the campaign to allow birth partners to attend pregnancy scans and all stages of labour in hospitals, and raise awareness of the detrimental impact COVID-19 maternity restrictions are having on affecting pregnant women.
Pregnant women have been speaking out ever since Government restrictions were introduced in March – and then not lifted as other restrictions began to ease. Holly Avis started the #ButNotMaternity petition on change.org in June during her pregnancy when she saw pubs and shops opening – while she still wasn’t allowed her birth partner at scans. The petition has so far amassed over 460,000 signatures.
Since Holly’s petition, pressure from the #ButNotMaternity campaign has led the Government to support an easing of restrictions – with the NHS also shifting it’s guidance. However, the Government has left the final decision about whether birth partners can attend scans and all stages of labour in the hands of individual NHS trusts, resulting in a postcode lottery for pregnant women.
Currently, many hospitals across the UK only allow birth partners to be present for the final stage of labour – with stories surfacing of women being in labour for hours by themselves, birth partners missing the birth of their children, and women having to receive heartbreaking news about their pregnancy alone.
The women taking part hope that by sharing their #ButNotMaternity photos and calling for people across the country to take part, they can bring attention to this issue and pressure NHS trusts to change their policies.
Alicia Kearns, MP, 26 weeks pregnant:
“The stories women and their partners shared with me are of still-births experienced alone, finding out their babies had died, of difficult and traumatic labours alone, and fathers missing births. Letters from fathers sat in car parks while their wives went through operations, women heartbroken and alone in hospitals, and from clinicians describing women devastated and traumatised on the maternity wards.
I feel particularly strongly about hospitals not allowing partners until women are in active labour, because with my first child I never reached active labour, despite 36 hours in labour, induction and two trips to the operating theatre. Under the rules some hospitals are still imposing, I would have gone through all of that alone, without anyone to advocate for me when I needed it most in my life.
This campaign is not just about women having a partner with them for emotional support, it’s about having an advocate who can make sure their wishes are upheld and protected when they are at their most vulnerable. Birth is not like the movies, and it’s wrong that anyone should go through it alone.
Less than a third of NHS Trusts continue to impose restrictions, but that’s still too many families suffering wrongly across our nation. I will keep fighting until all women receive the support and advocacy they need, and d
