Maternity Matters

Report – 19 January 2018

The Local Maternity System is undergoing changes and we are working with local maternity services to gather feedback that will help us better understand how services can be improved.

Wessex Voices was commissioned to carry out engagement with women and their birthing partners. Healthwatch Hampshire, one of Wessex Voices’ partners, was asked to undertake this on behalf of the project.

They, alongside the LMS, created a survey with midwives and service managers to look at experiences of women and their birthing partners around pregnancy, birth and the first 10 days after birth. The link to the on-line survey was shared widely across the region with other Healthwatches and promoted via Facebook and Twitter.

This extensive engagement with women and their birth partners has shown that overall, women have very positive experiences throughout their pregnancy and birth in all areas of Hampshire, Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

Most women were very thankful for the support they had received from all healthcare professionals. Many women recognise the pressures faced by the NHS and the amount of effort that staff go to, to make their experiences as smooth and stress free as possible.

I went to all the antenatal appointments available to me, the two that were run from the health visitors at the local children’s centre I felt were very dragged out and only focused on breast feeding where I would have preferred if it was how to change a nappy, however the one run at the hospital by my midwife was so useful myself and my partner felt like we had learnt so much and it was done in a fun way too

Maternity Matters

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