The Mule

Independent Midwives...where do I start with what I owe to them? Without Independent Midwives, I don't know what kind of birth I would have had with my second baby. Traumatised and scared after my first birth (induction, forceps etc), I discovered, right at the last minute, that you could 'opt out' of the NHS. I contacted Independent Midwives Caroline Baddiley and Chrissy Hustler, and as soon as they walked into my living room for our first meeting, I knew that everything was going to be different from that moment on. It's awkward to 'big up' IM's because doing so contains the implication that there is something wrong with NHS midwives. And of course, this is not the case. There are many many fantastic midwives in the NHS and many women have fantastic positive births under their care. The problem that I had, and that drove me to seek an alternative, was that I could not guarantee that I would know the midwife who attended me. In my local area at the time,...

Pregnant women are offered medical interventions so often that it's almost hard to imagine getting through an entire pregnancy and birth without having one. Whether it's injections, induction, or an intravenous drip, there are so many choices for women to make, and often they feel, quite understandably, that the best choice is to place their trust in the experts, who are, after all, offering them 'evidence based care'. But if midwives and obstetricians are offering 'evidence based care' - that is to say, they are making their recommendations based on good quality research - why then does the advice that individual clinicians offer, and the policies that individual hospitals and trusts implement, vary so greatly? A new report from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) suggests that the disparity between hospital statistics has finally come to their attention, although I'm not clear why it has taken them so long to notice informat...

UPDATE: 26th April - IMUK have received word from Dan Poulter's office that he will meet with them on 7th May. IMUK are grateful to everyone who helped them campaign for this. OK, before we start, well Dan Poulter, he's the Health Minister for Women's Health. There are several different Health Ministers, all of whom report to Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Health. You knew all that, right? Yup, me too, me too, just checking. So - Independent Midwives, who as we know,  face becoming illegal and extinct from October 2013 , have been trying to get a meeting with Dan Poulter for several months to discuss their demise and gain his help and support. Meeting with Dan Poulter is key to the IM's campaign. And yet, not only is he refusing to meet with them , he seems to be actively avoiding them . For example, IM's and their supporters have sent Christmas cards, Valentines cards, and hundreds of letters explaining their situation and the barriers they f...