Part 1 of September Maternity meeting update – plus a quick poll on breastfeeding support

It was great to see some new faces (adult and baby!) at the meeting today – thanks to all for coming! Thank you very much also to Jodie, who resigned as chair today to focus on her bump! Her hard work over the past year is really appreciated and she has really made a difference to the amount of people we have reached, including those with non-English speaking and difficult to reach groups.

I'll split this update into two - this one on the hospital/midwifery side, and the next one on health visiting and mental health. There are lots of new developments from JPUH:

​​1. There is now a perinatal mental health clinic happening fortnightly, that midwives can refer women to antenatally or postnatally. There is a consultant psychiatrist and obstetrician present, and this means women at this crucial time do not have to wait weeks to be seen. The focus is on women concerned about antenatal/postnatal depression and related issues, and a personal care pathway is made for each woman. They say there is much work still to do, but they are very proud they are making steps in the right direction. We really welcome this, and of course, would love to hear from any women that have used the new service what their experiences were

2. Partners staying: after working with us user reps on this since the start of the year, JPUH is planning to launch a trial scheme from October:​​​

• ​   'Twilight Time' extended visiting hours for birth partners, to 23.30 instead of 9pm currently, at midwife discretion and as long as they agree to the ‘code of conduct’ and are not known to staff for any relevant convictions or abuse concerns
• Also, for women that are transferred onto the Ward in the early hours, partners will be invited onto the ward for a short time, so they can help mum and baby get settled in their new surroundings, and know where to come in the morning, rather than saying goodbye at the ward doors.
•  In certain cases  the birth partners of women that meet certain criteria for extra support may also be able to remain on ward all night but this would be the exception rather than the rule, due to concerns about safeguarding, noise, space, safety, privacy and dignity. Priority factors would include for example Caesarean section, traumatic birth, late evening birth, additional needs etc. 
• We know this solution is not the blanket 'all partners allowed 24/7' that many women called for, so will not please everyone, but as we outlined in our previous blog, it is not really feasible to allow all partners to stay overnight with no restrictions. Hopefully this way forward will allow women more support at this crucial time, while also limiting the potential negative consequences of lots of men being on a women's ward overnight

​​3. Hypnobirthing – some midwives are currently being trained up and this will be offered from around December at around £15 per couple.

4.  Ward tours are now available every Tuesday at 1pm and include Central Delivery Suite, Dolphin Suite, and Ward 11 – which is great as we asked for this at the last meeting :)

5.  Children at scans – Norfolk and Norwich hospital has announced under-12s are not allowed at scans anymore. JPUH is not going down this route, despite some staff concerns. Instead, the wording on the scan letters will be changed to limit the number of children, and make clear that an additional adult should be present to take any disruptive children out if necessary, as sonographers need to be able to concentrate (especially during the anomaly scan), and of course there is also the possibility of bad news, which mums may not wish children to be present for.

6.  Breastfeeding – the hospital was very proud to get accredited for ‘Unicef Babyfriendly Initiative Stage 3’ a couple of year ago but must now apply for re-evaluation to keep that status. The Head of Midwifery feels that this is very expensive at around £9,000 plus a large amount of time by specialist midwives on paperwork for the auditing process. She is concerned this is not the best use of funds and wonders if women would rather that money and time was spent increasing the amount of face-to-face time the specialist infant-feeding midwives can spend with new mums – and hopefully setting up a drop-in breastfeeding clinic (unlike peer-supporters, midwives can refer for tongue-tie etc). She says that the Unicef BFI standards would still be carried on, just without the certificate. What do you think?