Trust Board Febuary 2010 - Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals

SWBTB (2/10) 035 (a)
Some women knew about birth centres from seeing them on television, women in the HOB
area were more familiar with the idea because of facilities at Birmingham Women’s Hospital. A
few Sandwell women had asked about access to birth centres or water births and were told
they were not available in the area. One or two had tried to use the birthing pool at City but it
had been unavailable at the time. Several respondents highlighted the need for more birthing
pools.
In focus groups and in comments on the questionnaire there were mixed views about whether
they preferred co-located or stand alone - some women felt that it should be co-located so that
they had easier access to the full range of specialist services, whilst others felt that the idea of a
local level unit in the community for women without complications would be both easily
accessible for women and their families and offer a comfortable place to give birth. Overall
however, when asked to make a choice (though the questionnaire) over twice as many women
chose a co-located unit (251) rather than a stand alone unit in the community (103).
A range of concerns were expressed about what would happen in a stand alone birth centre if
women experienced complications. Some people across 6 focus groups felt it might be
frightening or risky to give birth without consultants close by: “It’s frightening that there would
be no medical back up and at least 30 minutes ambulance ride to a hospital.” Two Roma
women said they did like the idea of a midwife-led unit but would prefer it to be co-located as
they liked the idea of having clinicians around for “comfort and support in times of danger” and
this view was echoed across most groups. Bangladeshi women in a focus group identified this
as a safety issue, one woman said her sisters would be happy with Option 3, but if women “had
complications it would be sad for them because they would have to travel to City”. Generally,
people did not like the idea of transferring to a hospital unit by ambulance whilst experiencing a
complicated labour, for this reason several women felt Option 2 was preferable to Option 3.
One woman noted that although she had chosen Option 3 “because it seems least centralised
option,” she did have concerns about the distance between a community birth centre and the
main hospital. Another said “City is too far, takes around 1hour, (…) It would be a nightmare to
go to City. A community based birth centre would be fab.”
Many women wanted more information about MLUs – stand alone or co-located. Questions
included:
• What pain relief would women be able to have at an MLU?
• Could there be an opportunity to visit a Midwife-Led Birth Centre to see what is was
like?
• How long would the transfer in traffic take for Option 3?
• Do women stay at a birth centre after having baby (more recovery time) or are they
discharged?
• Does the baby have a consultant check at the birth centre e.g., for clicky hips, etc?
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