Another week, another maternity report. And if you’ve been pregnant for more than five minutes, you’ll have seen it land in your news feed – probably at a time when you were already anxious, already doom-scrolling, already wondering if your body and the system around you can be trusted.
So let’s talk about it. Openly.
Yes. It’s shocking.
The Nottingham Ockenden review found that women and families weren’t listened to. That care was sometimes uncaring – even cruel. That babies and mothers died who didn’t have to. That racism and empathy burnout were part of the picture. It’s devastating, and those families deserve to have their experiences heard and validated.
And also: it’s nothing new.
I don’t say that to be dismissive. I say it because it matters that you understand this. The Ockenden report joins a long line – Changing Childbirth, Better Births, Each Baby Counts etc – and every one of them says the same things. The same failures. The same recommendations. The same calls for better staffing, better listening, better care.
And then… not a lot changes.
Why? Because changing it requires money. Safe staffing levels require funding. The gold standard of midwifery care – continuity, real relationships, being truly seen by the person caring for you – costs money that hasn’t been made available. Right now there are student midwives who can’t get jobs, and units who can’t fill shifts. That’s not a staffing shortage story. That’s a funding story.
These reports do something important: they put failure on record. But they also do something that concerns me deeply. They scare pregnant people. They pile on the fear with no clear resolution, no “and here’s what to do about it” – just a wall of what’s going wrong. And that fear, in pregnancy and in labour, has real physical consequences.
So what do you actually do with this?
First: you are not powerless. That’s the thing I most want you to hear. The system has real problems. And within that system, informed, prepared, clear-headed parents make a measurable difference to their own experience. Every day.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
You need to know your rights. No intervention can happen without your informed consent. That is the law. Not a nice idea – the law. If you don’t know what that means in a birth setting, you need to.
You need to understand the system you’re walking into – not to be frightened by it, but to be able to work with it and, when needed, push back against it. Knowing what questions to ask, and when to ask them, changes everything.
You need a birth partner who is prepared. In labour, you go deeply inward – it’s not the moment to negotiate with a room full of people. Your partner needs to know what you want, and how to advocate for you clearly, calmly and with authority.
And you need to do the internal work – the part that no amount of research replaces. The fears sitting in your body about birth didn’t come from nowhere. They came from every birth story you’ve ever been told, every TV drama, every horror story from a well-meaning relative. That fear affects how your body labours. Working on it isn’t soft or woo-woo. It’s arguably the most practical thing you can do.
The system is not going to be fixed before your baby arrives.
I’m sorry. It’s not. And reading report after report, sharing them on social media, feeling horrified and then helpless – that’s not preparation.
What is preparation? Learning. Really learning. Understanding birth, understanding your options, understanding yourself. Building the knowledge and the toolkit that means whatever happens in that room, you are an active participant – not a passenger.
That’s exactly what I teach. Not a promise of a particular birth. Not a fantasy about pain-free labour on a cloud. Real, evidence-based, honest preparation for birth in the real world – including the NHS one, with all its pressures and imperfections.
Because here’s the truth that those reports never quite say: the families who come through even difficult births feeling okay, feeling heard, feeling like they made the decisions – they didn’t get lucky. They were prepared.
You can be too.
If you want to talk about what preparation actually looks like for you, get in touch. That’s what I’m here for!