E232. What if everything you’ve been told about preparing for birth… isn’t enough?

When you saw some of the reports that have come out, the documentaries that have come out, what were your first thoughts with your, like, midwife head on, Beth?

Oh, so, so have you, speaking of reports, did you see the one, I think it was last week, that said about how England, England's cesarean rate has increased substantially? And obviously the, the usual, like, go-to is it's because of maternal age, BMI raised, um, extra medical, um, history and things like that for women.

But England is a anomaly, so it's not, this is e- a, uh, increase in maternal age and BMI and medical history, like, that's gonna be a universal-

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah

... thing, isn't it? But actually it's, it's only England's cesarean rates, um, that have increased.

So I think that does show very much so how things are changing so much recently, and I, I personally, I've got my own kind of ideas on, on why, um, why that is.

So the first one is antenatal education.

So since COVID, I don't know what it's like locally to you, but from what I see locally to me, and obviously across for the amount of women we speak to on social media, antenatal education for group classes has pretty much gone to nothing.

So before COVID, the NHS offered group classes, but it, it doesn't anymore.

I don't know if it's the same for you, Pip, in your area, and you hear the same, but it's like that type of ed- uh, antenatal education is, is very much dropping.

And we know, like, one of the best research, you, you know, antenatal education is so well-researched, isn't it?

Yeah.

And it's so consistent in those that do antenatal education are less likely to have a cesarean, less likely to have instrumental birth, less likely to choose things like epidural and, and diamorphine.

Not that it's about pain relief, but I think that does-

Yeah

... just show how much of a strong impact-

Mm

... antenatal education can have.

Definitely.

And Beth, do you know what? I think this is perhaps a bit controversial, but I feel like we just need to be really honest with families and really honest with women, and say that, like, the NHS is fantastic at delivering that emergency care, like, that life-saving care.

It is so phenomenal.

But the reality is, and I think what, like, my takeaway message really for families out of all of the s- the stuff that's out there at the moment, is that the, the support, the information gathering, the kind of empowerment, the more holistic preparation as opposed to the, like, antenatal checks and that physical stuff, that's on the shoulders of families now.

Like, there is no one coming to save you-