RCM letter to The Times responding to Times column on COVID rules and pregnancy

on 02 October 2020 Midwifery NHS Covid-19 Pregnancy Midwives Expectant Mothers RCM

In her column yesterday, Alice Thomson painted a picture that few women who have given birth over the past six months would recognise. 

While, for the safety of staff as well as women, visiting times may be shorter, and, where rooms are too small to socially distance, partners may attend scans virtually, maternity services are ensuring women have as positive a pregnancy and birth experience as possible. Women have reported benefits of fewer visitors on postnatal wards: finding it easier to start breastfeeding, and opportunities to bond with other new mothers. 

No woman should give birth alone – and the reality is that a tiny minority do. Rather than stoke fear among pregnant women, perhaps Alice Thomson would do better to direct her ire at the Government, whose lack of clarity and communication, to pregnant women and those delivering services, has left midwives to pick up the pieces. 

Yours faithfully 

Gill Walton 

Chief Executive 

Royal College of Midwives