NICE has announced a new quality standard aimed at improving care for women giving birth.
Although NICE has confirmed that midwife-led care is just as safe as giving birth in hospital under the supervision of obstetricians, a 2013 report from the NCT (National Childbirth Trust) and the Women's Institute (WI) found that only 12% of women had been given the full choice of where to give birth. The NICE quality standard for intrapartum care emphasises the need for women at low risk of complications to be given the full choice of birth settings. This could be at home, in a midwife-led unit which is freestanding or alongside a hospital, or in an obstetrician-led labour ward. It calls for commissioners to collect data on how well women and babies are doing in all settings locally so this can be used to help women make an informed decision.
The quality standard also calls for women with low risk of complications to be spared from unnecessary medical procedures if their labour is progressing normally. This includes electronic monitoring of the baby’s heartbeat or medicines to help speed up labour.
The quality standard sets out priorities for all women who go into labour, whether they and their babies are at low risk or go on to develop complications, including:
• Assigning a midwife to look after just one woman in labour, i.e. one-to-one care.
• Leaving a baby’s umbilical cord for at least one minute before clamping and cutting it, unless there are concerns about the baby.
• Encouraging women to have skin-to-skin contact with their babies as soon as possible after birth.
