Strategy urgently needed to fix maternity services crisis in Northern Ireland: RCM

Northern Ireland urgently needs a strategy to fix a growing crisis in maternity services, the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has said.

The representative body’s warning comes as it publishes a report on the province’s maternity provision, which is being launched as Stormont today (Tuesday).

According to the RCM, the situation “has gone beyond urgent and is now critical”.

The details the “mounting challenges for maternity services as the demographics of women needing care is changing rapidly”.

RCM Director for Northern Ireland, Karen Murray, said: “Services are coping because of the incredible efforts of staff, who go above and beyond on a daily basis, often to the detriment of their mental and physical health, but this is not sustainable.

"We are seeing far more complicated pregnancies, and this is increasing the demands on midwives and their colleagues.

"They want to ensure these women get the best possible support, advice and care. That is proving more and more difficult without the resources to back them up. We need more investment and more midwives to deliver the services women expect and deserve.”

Ms Murray said the recent rise in the number of student midwives is one positive that “must be sustained,” and added: “Any fall in student midwife numbers will have a negative impact on the care for women and the wellbeing of staff.

"It is also essential that we focus on retaining the midwives that we have by ensuring that they are paid fairly and have opportunities to work in sustainable ways and to develop their career.”

The report also shows that there are increasing numbers of women being cared for by Northern Ireland maternity services with additional health needs.

More than one in four pregnant women in NI are now obese and less than half have a weight in the healthy range. They are also much more likely to have been diagnosed with diabetes than a decade ago.

Despite a drop in the birthrate over recent years, all these factors have significantly increased and “complicated the workload of midwives, and increased pressures on maternity services,” the RCM said.