Maternity ‘triumph’

It is disturbing to read (March 19) that we may be facing problems in our maternity services which have an impact particularly on our most vulnerable mothers and babies.

Legislation was passed in 1990 to allow midwives to practise independently and at the time this was touted as a ‘‘major triumph for women’’ by the chief executive of Royal College of Midwives. But has it been really?

What happened in practice was that eventually almost all family doctors who had previously done deliveries, rightly or wrongly (but perhaps not surprisingly in view of the strong anti-doctor messages underpinning the lobbying for change) decided to give up providing maternity care as part of their general practice.

Increasingly, there was no choice for women who may have preferred – for whatever reason – their family doctor to do their delivery with the support of hospital midwives.

Now we hear that the independent midwives, having taken over maternity care and carved out (as they wanted to) perhaps an impossibly demanding role as they support women through both labour and delivery, cannot hack the pace.

As midwives walk away from the profession, I wonder if pregnant women still feel the ‘‘triumph’’ as they start their search for a maternity provider. HELEN WILSON

Wellington