Midwifery in the UK is under pressure from a unique set of problems. The NHS is short of around 2,600 midwives, the workforce is getting older, and record numbers of women in their thirties and forties – who according to a Royal College of Midwives (RCM) report, require greater care – are having children.
Last year, the NHS employed more than a thousand midwives in their 60s, more than any other year on record, and those aged 65 or over rose from eight in 2001 to 177 last year.
661,496 babies were born in England last year, almost 100,000 more than in 2001, causing the NHS to 2,600 midwives short.
In every year since 2006 more than 110,000 babies have been born to women in their late thirties. This is a level of births not seen since just after the Second World War, and four times the level of the late 1970s, the RCM said. For women in their forties, births have been above 29,000 for four years in a row, which, again, are rates not seen since the 1940s.
If you’re a midwife we want to hear from you. What’s the reality? How has it changed? And are older mothers really a problem?
Fill in the form below and we’ll use a selection of responses in our reporting.
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