Complex births 'add to pressure'

Ministers are investing more money into maternity services

Midwives are struggling to cope with the increasing number of complex births they are seeing, regulators say.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council said more pregnancies were being seen in older women, immigrants and people with health problems across the UK.

It said these cases often required more attention pre-birth and during labour which added to the pressure on an already under-staffed service.

The government said more midwives would be recruited to tackle the issue.

NMC officials spoke out as the regulator published its annual report based on feedback from midwife supervisors - senior midwives who oversee community and hospital teams.

NHS trusts and the government need to address the shortfall in midwives Beverley Beech, of the Nursing and Midwifery Council

Beverley Beech, from the NMC's midwifery committee, said: "We are being told that midwifes are dealing with more and more complex cases.

"These have health implications for the mother and baby and mean staff have to spend more time with them. That means they have less time for other women."

There are about 700,000 births a year in the UK.

It is not clear exactly how many of these are to immigrants, but officials figures show that more than a fifth of these are to women not born in the UK - a figure which has been rising in recent years.

Ms Beech said immigrants often accessed NHS care late on in their pregnancies which meant conditions such as gestational diabetes could be picked up late.

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She also said the trend for women to have children later - the over 40s birth rate is at a record high - was also causing problems as these women were more likely to need help delivering, while health problems were more common for mother and baby.

And she said similar problems were seen among women with obesity-related health conditions.

The warning comes after the Healthcare Commission and King's Fund have raised concerns about the pressure in the maternity system in the last year.

Midwives believe another 5,000 midwives are needed immediately to boost the workforce close to the 40,000 needed to provide a satisfactory service.

The government in England has responded by promising to invest an extra £330m in maternity services to boost staff numbers by 4,000 over the next four years, while Wales and Scotland are also aiming to expand the workforce.

A Department of Health spokesman said the NHS needed to think carefully about how it was going to deploy the extra staff.

"We recognise that with the rising birth rate and increased complexities of pregnancies more midwives will be required in some areas."

But he added: "The UK remains one of the safest countries in the world to have a baby."