Before resigning after my maternity leave I was an NHS midwife who was lucky enough to work providing one to one care for my woman. I moved out of my area when I was pregnant and decided the only way to get the care I wanted for me and my baby was to find an independent midwife.

I had fantastic care from Lynn and Rosie, I really enjoyed the time to concentrate on my pregnancy, and even managed to keep below the doctors radar! I had a wonderful homebirth and I am sure it went so smoothly because I felt confident in the care I was recieving.

I have since decided not to return to the NHS as I want to provide the sort of one to one care I was lucky to recieve. In the area I live this is not possible within the NHS. My long term plan had been to become an independent midwife and of course to have an independent midwife at my next birth. I feel very sad, cross and very frustrated that this is happening to independent midwives and want to help in any way I can. (NHS  midwife and ex-client)

As a homeopath I treat women and their children who have experienced trauma due lack of NHS staff in Hospitals. It appears all too common that they are left alone to fend for themselves and in some cases deliver on their own!

I feel it would be breaking a basic right of women to choose the type of care they wish to receive.

(Homeopath)

I hope this campaign receives justice, it would be a crime if IMs were not able to provide this most valuable service. (doula)

My daughter is just completing her 3rd year in midwifery training. She is passionate about the very best care for pregnant women and the care they should receive. She believes that women should be encouraged to have the birth they want/deserve.

She knows she will have to work in the NHS for a period of time to gain experience, should she be "lucky" enough to secure a post. With a nationwide shortage of midwives (10,000 ???)we should be encouraging recruitment of forward thinking midwives, whose aim is to give women a wonderful experience of a very special time in their lives. She believes the best course for her is independent midwifery.

I was never aware of choices available to me?! (mother of student midwife)

NB I replied that NHS experience after qualification is not a pre-requisite to independent practice - Elke (on behalf of the IMA) 

Having spent a year working for an independent group practice I know what a difference the care of an independent midwife can make and also how satisfiying working that way is.

For lots of different reasons I returned to the NHS mainly to facilitate a move to be nearer my family and not a day goes by when I wish I wasn't working in "the System" and being forced to compromise on so much.

I will fight to save independent midwifery because the consequences of not doing so are fundamental - they are to do with choice and the freedom to do so. (desperately aspiring independent midwife - her words!)