Half of women surveyed experienced at least one ‘red flag’ event during labour such as lack of timely access to pain relief

A chronic shortage of midwives across the UK means women in labour are left feeling unsafe and frightened or as if they are being treated “like cattle” or “on a conveyor belt”, a new report has found.

In a study of 2,500 women who have given birth since 2014, half were found to have experienced at least one “red flag” event such as not getting timely access to pain relief due to insufficient staffing levels.

The research conducted by the National Childbirth Trust (NCT) and the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) found that since a similar report four years ago there has been “scant progress” in women’s experiences of giving birth under the NHS.

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A red flag problem is defined by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) as a “warning sign that something may be wrong with midwifery staffing”.

Problems include delays of up to an hour or more in washing or suturing, medication doses being missed, delays of 30 minutes or more in getting pain relief, or when one midwife is not able to provide continuous one-to-one care and support to a woman during established labour.

The report found 17% of women did not get such one-to-one care from midwives, while more than a third who required or received pain relief experienced a delay of 30 minutes or more. Some even reported suffering post-traumatic stress as a result of the way they were treated while giving birth.

Health experts said the findings should serve as a warning to the government that staffing levels are at crisis point. Elizabeth Duff, a senior policy adviser at the NCT, said: “Our research has exposed a crisis in maternity care. No woman should have to suffer a red flag event when bringing a baby into the world. Severe staffing shortages must be acted on so that every family receives an acceptable level of care.”

The study found that 89% of women saw between one and six midwives during their pregnancy with most seeing between one and four. While 88% of women had never met any of the midwives who looked after them during their birth, just over half of those said it did not make a difference to them, mainly due to the professionalism of the midwives caring for them. But 12% said this made them feel alone and vulnerable and 6% said it made them feel unsafe.

Some women wrote about feeling like cattle or a machine, while others reported that a negative birth experience had had a lasting impact on them. One said: “I received a very ‘robotic’ care. It wasn’t very personal and I felt like just another person on the conveyor belt.”

Another said: “I wasn’t treated as a human. I was just a product on a conveyor belt. I was not respected and my birth has left me suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.”

One pointed to staffing issues, saying: “My chosen hospital ward and adjoining birth centre were extremely busy, or so I kept being told on the phone, which resulted in me having an unplanned home birth.”

Another new mother expressed her disappointment at being unable to have the labour she wanted because of “staffing issues”. She said: “There was no room for me on the delivery ward. I ended up giving birth in the antenatal ward, which meant I couldn’t get either a water birth or an epidural.”

Once women had given birth, almost one in five (18%) said they had not seen a midwife as often as they needed, with 36% saying this had caused them great concern. More than a third of women said the diagnosis of a health problem had been delayed due to lack of postnatal care.

Marylyn Haines Evans, the chair of public affairs at the NFWI, said: “The findings from this report show that chronic midwife shortages, an estimated 3,500 in England alone, continue to undermine the delivery of high-quality care for women and their families.”

Louise Silverton, the director for midwifery at the Royal College of Midwives, said the report should be a “red flag event for this government”. She said: “The fact that half of women have experienced a red flag event is hugely worrying. It is a sign of services under too much pressure, with too few resources and not enough staff.”