Saturday 3 January 2015

Bereavement Midwives

Where have all the bereavement midwives gone ?

When we were in hospital following Charlies death we were never offered the services of a bereavement midwife. 

I have since spoken with a work colleague who lost her child a few years before Charlie passed away. 

She was lucky enough to have been offered and given support by a bereavement midwife.
She speaks very highly of the midwife she saw and said that it made things easier to cope with having a professional there purely to support her.

We all think that had Carrie been given this support she would have found those first few weeks following Charlies death a little easier to deal with.

It seems obvious to us that this type of support is crucial following such a devastating loss. 
However the government don't seem to see things the same way.

We were told that the funding had been cut for the provision of bereavement midwives and this was why Carrie was not given this vital support.

In 2014 we contacted the NHS to inquire about the provisions of bereavement midwives across the UK.

We were told that Leeds now has 2 bereavement midwives available to cover the whole of the Leeds district. 

They seemed really pleased that they had 2 and felt that this was a good amount.

How can 2 nurses provide the support needed to all the families out there having just lost their babies.

We were also told that not every maternity unit has a bereavement midwife. 

This is usually due to either the size of the unit or type of unit. 

If the unit is only small they may only see a very small number of perinatal deaths thus meaning that a bereavement midwife would not be needed on a full time basis.

I'm sure that this situation is similar across the UK and that the numbers of bereavement midwives available is no way sufficient to provide the correct care to all the bereaved families.

We also asked about the role of the bereavement midwife. 
We were told that there is no nationally defined role descriptor for a bereavement midwife and many work as part of a multi professional team whilst others work in their own specialty.
They went on to say that many midwives who have an interest in bereavement support will provide this in addition to their current role.
During their training all student midwives will have some element of bereavement care and support. 
However this is not a standard training package that all students receive. 
How this training and how much training is given will depend on the locally delivered curriculum based on the Nursing and Midwifery Council Standards for pre registration midwifery education.
We feel that there should be a national training strategy that all student midwives are given regardless of where they are training.
 At least then it would mean that all qualified midwives would have all had a basic training in supporting bereaved parents and families.
In an ideal world there would be enough bereavement midwives to ensure that all parents having experienced a loss will be given immediate and effective support.
We know this isn't an ideal world but it would be good to see that there are bereavement midwives available at all maternity hospitals and that parents can access them within a 24 hour period.
If the coordinated package of aftercare that we are petitioning to get was available to all bereaved families, and bereavement midwives were readily accessible it would save the NHS thousands of pounds in mental health support and counselling waiting lists would be vastly reduced.

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