‘It was empowering and joyful’: British women employed private midwives

a A growing number of patients are paying up to £8,000 to hire private midwives, amid frustration at the poor service faced by many within the NHS. Britain’s only private maternity hospital, Portland, has reported more women being treated. It comes after a report from MPs this month found that women had been mocked, ignored and left with permanent damage by midwives and doctors during childbirth.

Here three women tell their stories.

Catherine Wilson, 32, from Cheshire, was born privately last year. She had her first child at home, supported by an independent midwife. “Before my pregnancy I already knew that I wanted to give birth at home. Every NHS midwife I spoke to was positive about the idea. But I knew there was a good chance they wouldn’t have a team available when the time came and I ended up in the hospital,” she says.

She added: “The uncertainty was a big problem for me. The choice to invest in a midwife who I could get to know during my pregnancy and who was guaranteed to visit when I gave birth was therefore an easy choice. I feel extremely privileged to have been able to make that choice.”

Catherine saw the same midwife, who came to her home more or less every week from about 20 weeks onwards. She says their appointments lasted an hour or two. “She supported me when it looked like I would have to plan a vaginal breech birth at home. When the time came, she and a colleague arrived at my home within an hour of asking to support me during the birth of our son. It was calm, powerful and joyful the whole time,” she says.

“My experience made me want to change the narrative around birth because it was painful, messy and undignified. I am particularly in favor of home birth.”

Ani*, 38, a GP from Manchester, visited maternity and child care units as part of her training. “As such, I don’t consider myself completely ignorant of the process of childbirth, but you could say I only got into the complicated deliveries,” she says.

This experience, along with her ‘realization that NHS funding and care is deteriorating across the board’, means she wanted a private caesarean section to give birth to her first child.

“Most GP salaries won’t be as high as that kind of money, but we have recently had an inheritance that could cover some of the costs,” she says.

However, Ani is struggling to find the right care in the north of England. “I determined it should be in the private wing of an NHS hospital, which has immediate access to a neonatal unit and adult emergency care.”

“I know many well-trained non-medical professionals. They have had private deliveries without thinking about the potential problems,” she adds. “Our private and NHS services are not sufficiently integrated to enable safe care in an emergency. The stakes were ultimately too high to consider private delivery without the comprehensive service of an NHS team.”

She says many of her colleagues are also considering private births.

Elisabeth, who lives in Durham, had her first child in August 2023. “There is not even a home birth service offered by the NHS in this area at the moment… I find birth fascinating and I have great faith in my intuition and that my body was built for birth. I wanted to experience a physiological birth if possible and from what I had learned over the years I knew that this was unlikely on the NHS and that hiring an independent midwife was my best bet.

“We got the money from family and savings. The savings is what we would have used for a home deposit, but we decided this was more important now. We knew that whatever happened with the birth, even if the worst happened and I ended up in hospital, the postnatal care from independent midwives is better than what you get from the NHS. It would help ease the transition to parenthood.”

Her midwife’s costs amounted to £6,600. It included monthly visits until 32 weeks, then two weekly visits, as well as weekly visits shortly thereafter until the end of pregnancy. She also received daily visitors during the postnatal period.

“I think people who have unfortunately had their eyes opened because of bad experiences may not trust the NHS, which apparently is all too common now,” she says.

*Some names have been changed