Charlotte Abigail Bagley (Born in Hospital), Izabelle May Bagley (Born at Home)

Throughout my first pregnancy I did not get to see the same midwife twice. I really wanted to have my baby at home but when I asked one of the team midwives the reply was "we don't really like doing that, as this is your first baby, there are too many things that could go wrong and If everything goes fine you can go home the next day". I didnt think to fight it, I just nodded and accepted.

I have been working as a staff midwife in a busy London hospital for 7 years now. My children were young and I wanted to be able to work part time in order to be with them.

As an independent midwife, I know that I would have to dedicate a lot of my time to the women booked under my care, being on-call constantly.

I started training as a midwife after the births of my first 2 children at home with the fantastic support of independent midwives. They enabled me to have the births I wanted and fully supported my whole family, many of whom questioned the safety of homebirth. They guided us through, answered all our questions and my whole family have become strong supporters of homebirth, my brother and sister choosing to have their children at home too !

I trained as a direct result of my wonderful births, in awe of the midwives that looked after me. That I survived the training is a miracle ! Over half the class dropped out, due to: long hours (38+ hour weeks, 6 weeks annual leave), lack of funds (poxy bursary) staff shortage, lack of support within the nhs, and often a general disillusionment in the system and in midwifery. But I survived !

I am hoping to become an independent midwife (will call you soon Jane x), as my children are older now and I certainly feel I am ready to do proper midwifery.

I gained more knowledge of birth through independent midwives than I have through my training. Midwives within the nhs cannot give women proper care when there are such staff shortages, huge amounts of paperwork (and now computor documentation), and free baby milk on postnatal wards. Hospital midwives follow protocols that don't trust the birth process. We literally rush women through labour, defensively following protocols that will protect us in a court of law, birth in hospital is not treated individually.

As for the money I spent on having independent midwives ? Well, we spend more on the funerals of our loved ones, but question spending money on the birth of our children ?! I will never figure that one out. It was the best money I have or will ever spend on myself and that of my children. Thank you all you wonderful independent midwives, still listening to women and supporting them through the wonderful journey of birth. (midwife and ex-client of independent midwives)

Peggy’s birth

From very early on in my pregnancy I thought about having a home birth. I asked the midwife about it at my first appointment at UCLH but I was told that I was outside their area for home births. My nearest hospital is the Homerton but I was aware from others’ experiences (and the midwife at UCLH confirmed) that they are unable to guarantee a home birth due to staff availability. My pregnancy was progressing well so I had no reason to think I would need medical intervention and the more I found out about home births and hospital births, the more sure I was that I wanted to have a home birth.

As the NHS was unable to give me what I had decided I wanted, I looked into independent midwifery and arranged to meet Elke when I was 5 months pregnant. I was immediately impressed by her – she is well-informed, very good at explaining things, confidence-inspiring and friendly. It already felt very different from the appointments I had attended at UCLH where I had not seen the same person more than once and, as I didn’t have any complications, were perfunctory and impersonal.

As it was my first pregnancy I had a lot of questions and concerns and my regular visits from Elke which were always at my home and often lasted over an hour allowed us to discuss different aspects of my pregnancy and labour in lots of detail. Elke made it clear on several issues that she could provide with all the information I needed to make an informed decision but that ultimately all choices were mine to make. In some ways this was daunting but it allowed me to have complete control of my birth experience from the choice of lighting to my decision not to give my baby an injection of vitamin K.

I am 29 years old and currently 37 weeks pregnant with my first child, a son that my husband Phillip and I have decided to name Tate. I have to say that due to an unbelievable lack of support from FOUR NHS midwives for the birth I wanted (natural, at home and with a birth pool) despite being very fit and having a completely healthy pregnancy and no reason to oppose my wishes other than they “didn’t like home waterbirths” and "didn't feel competent due to lack of training" I decided to give birth without a midwife at home because frankly, I felt more harassed than supported and it was affecting my health and my enjoyment of pregnancy.

It was only during an active birth class that I heard about an independent midwife, Julia who agreed to allow us to pay her over the next 5 years so that we could just about afford her care. If it were not for Julias services I would still be fighting to be heard, researching obsessively in order to ensure that I had the necessary facts to hand so that the NHS midwives knew that I fully understood that the scare tactics they were using on me were unfounded.

I was quoted incorrect “statistics”, asked what I would do when I haemorrhaged due to having a natural 3rd stage (all midwives carry the necessary drug to stop this if it happens) told I couldn’t photograph the birth IN MY OWN HOME and that my husband would not be allowed to cut the cord (again in my OWN HOME) among many, many other things. I have been in correspondence with the Head of Midwifery in my area and the CEO of the local hospital over this and it has been an extremely difficult time for me.

The only relief came when we engaged the services of our independent midwife Julia (even though we really cannot afford to) she gives us the support and reassurance we need to have faith that my body is capable of giving birth naturally, that I will not be rushed and that I will only go to hospital if there is a bonafide medical reason to! Birth is a natural process, it is NOT an illness and unfortunately the NHS midwives that I came into contact with treated it as if it were. Julia discussed insurance with us and we decided to go ahead despite knowing that Julia practices without it because if we didn’t have her there we would have had no midwife at all and we thought it a better choice for Tate to have a qualified midwife there with us at his birth. If it had not been for Julia, I for one would been backed into a very lonely corner in which all sorts of terrible complications could have arisen for myself and for my beautiful little Tate. I really hope that this proposal does not happen!(mother to be and IM client)

In the future I would like to have more than the two children I have now, the birth of my first daughter was very distressing and the after care was none existant, this is why my second daughter was born at home under the care of a highly trained professional Independent midwife.

If this option is taken away from me, then I am sorry to say that I will not be having anymore children, this is how strongly I feel on the matter.(ex client of Independent Midwife)