The most important thing with maternity care
is that women are under the care of a midwife.
All women need a midwife.
Midwifery care for delivery can take place at home,
or in a midwifery unit if there is a free-standing one, or in hospital.
I would like to think that we can provide
the most basic but full midwifery care in the hospital unit,
but should there be a problem, there are doctors around to help to intervene.
There are some people who we would recommend, because of complications,
have a baby in hospital.
There are others who would choose to have it.
The underlying benefit is that if there were to be some reason
that they would be better off with help from a doctor,
then they're in the right place to get intervention if necessary.
I've got a blood condition that causes my blood to be slightly sticky,
which means that sometimes it can clot,
so particularly in pregnancy that's not a good thing,
so for me I felt that I needed to be at a hospital.
I'd like to think that the philosophy in a unit
and what the midwives and what the doctors want
is for women to have everything as normal as possible.
The sorts of things that we've tried in this unit, for example,
we have cupboards in the room so we can hide any hi-tech equipment
if it's not needed.
With a hospital birth you're not at home but you can still make it feel home.
You can take your own things in, and taking my music in helped.
The fact that we had that en-suite room
and we had an area that we could use
and we didn't need to go outside the room, it was our space, was nice.
We're here to make everything as normal and natural and wonderful
as it possibly can be,
and only to intervene if really necessary.
It was the labour that I wanted because I did want a labour
where I had minimum pain relief,
and in actual fact I managed to have a TENS machine.
I think I had a couple of puffs on gas and air while I was examined
and that was it, so I didn't really have much pain relief,
but actually that was good for me.
There are times that we know we need to assist the delivery,
and that means using either forceps or a ventouse.
This is a modern form of ventouse.
It's disposable,
it's suction equipment for delivering a baby
and it's commonly used for assisted deliveries now.
People can choose to have an epidural if they want to,
if that's what they'd like for pain relief,
and sometimes we will recommend it.
But if they have an epidural,
they have to have a drip in their arm just to have some fluid.
Then they have the epidural,
which involves putting local anaesthetic in the back and putting a needle in.
We try very hard not to give general anaesthetics to people.
We try hard to use what's called regional anaesthesia,
which is either an epidural or a spinal.
I've got diabetes, so...
Women with diabetes have bigger babies.
So I had my first baby, she was induced,
but then I ended up having an emergency Caesarean section.
And then my second baby,
we decided with the advice from the consultant and midwives
to have an elective Caesarean.
The vast majority of elective and emergency Caesarean sections
are done under spinal anaesthetic, so the woman's awake.
It's an enormous advantage that if she's awake she's involved in the experience
and her partner can be there.
You can kind of feel something pressing on your tummy gently,
but it's not painful and...
It's quite comfortable, really, you just can't feel anything.
I couldn't drive or hoover or carry heavy things
for a good four to six weeks
and after that I was completely recovered,
I didn't have any problems.
Often, and perhaps most often with a vaginal delivery,
there's enough space and the tissues will stretch,
so there's no damage and no stitches necessary,
but there are times that clearly
the opening to the vagina isn't going to be big enough
and it might tear just to make room for the baby,
and sometimes it tears and that's fine and we sew it up.
There are advantages and disadvantages to having a tear
or deciding to do a cut called an episiotomy.
We don't do them unnecessarily.
Midwives are the experts in trying to protect the vaginal opening,
to try and stop any tears or damage.
But if it is necessary then there's no harm in it,
it's easy to repair and then there's no problems with it afterwards.
Our overwhelming desire
is for women and their partners and families
to have what they consider is a successful and happy outcome.
I think the biggest thing is not to be afraid of having your baby in hospital
because it's the reassurance
that you've got all of the medical staff on hand to help you if you need it.
And I did need it so I was very grateful.
I have given birth in hospitals twice
where I've had all the facilities and all the medical services there
because there was a chance that I might need it,
but both times I've given birth naturally
without any kind of assistance.
So you can still have all kinds of birth,
whatever works for you, in a hospital.