The British National Health Service should massively step up the use of midwives to manage births – as part of a drive to improve maternity care, experts said yesterday.
Most low-risk births should be handled by midwives, according to the Kings Fund.
Its report suggests midwives and doctors could be freed to concentrate on their key tasks by shifting other works to nurses and support workers.
Only ten per cent of hospital births in England take place in midwife-led wards. The report says midwives should be providing one to one care for many women who are at low and medium risk of problems.
Doctors should focus on those with higher risks, they said.
The report says midwife-led births are linked to benefits for pregnant women, including few interventions and a higher rate of breast-feeding.
Anna Dixon, of the King’s Fund, said: "Midwife-led care should be the norm rather than the exception. Midwives’ time must be used more effectively with an increased use of maternity support workers, doulas providing lay support and specialist nurses. This would free up doctors to spend more time caring for higher-risk women.
"Having sufficient staffing levels is important, but there is a need to rethink how staff are deployed."
A mothers’ group welcomed the report – but warned it should not become an excuse for the NHS to try to manage with fewer skilled staff.
Belinda Phipps, of the National Childbirth Trust, said the report gave "food for thought".
Ms Phipps said: "What is needed is a shift to caseload midwifery, where every full-time midwife cares for 28-30 women right through their pregnancy, labour and the early weeks after birth, building up a trusting relationship which we know from experience and evidence gives the right results for mothers, babies and families."
* Meanwhile UK regulators moved against an Essex hospital that was accused of failing to ensure the safety of pregnant women.
The maternity unit in Queens Hospital in Essex is often under-staffed with staff undertaking jobs for which they are not trained. Equipment was either "unavailable, poorly maintained or not working," the Care Quality Commission said.
The Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust has been given just weeks to improve the situation.
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