New mums being “pushed out” of maternity wards

Huge pressure for beds on maternity wards is creating ‘drive through’ delivery fears for new mothers.

New mums are being “pushed out” of maternity wards before they are ready in a drive to free up beds, it has been claimed.

The Sunday Post has learned women who have given birth are spending less time in hospital than ever before.

Most now go home after just 1.8 days, compared with an average of three days in 1999.

That means the amount of time new mums spend in maternity wards has plunged by 40% since health was devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

The trend has drawn comparisons to US healthcare where the same practice has been dubbed ‘drive through deliveries’.

Critics fear cash-strapped health boards are removing mums from the safe environs of the maternity unit at a time when they’re vulnerable to complications.

But other professionals, including the Royal College of Midwives, back quick turn-arounds for healthy women.

Dr Jean Turner, of Scotland Patients Association, warned against replicating America’s fast-delivery furore.

She said: “We do not want to copy America and I hope we aren’t doing that in order to meet the demand and lack of capacity within maternity services and community services. That would be a backwards step.”

The revelations come after The Sunday Post uncovered evidence thousands of new mums are being discharged from hospital in the middle of the night.

Health bosses revealed many maternity units now had six to 12-hour discharges “as a norm”, stating it was preferable for healthy women to go home quickly.

But analysis of figures in obstetrics which is the branch of medicine dealing with pregnancy and child birth reveals the country’s maternity wards are under significant pressure.

Over the past decade demand on beds has soared by 32% with an average of 88 patients per bed per year in 2004, compared with 116.4 in 2013.

The number of available, staffed maternity beds fell by 18.4% from 1,008 in 2004 to 822 over the same period. There are also now 61 fewer full-time midwives in Scotland.

Meanwhile, Scotland’s birth rate has increased, with 52,386 live births in 2004/5, compared with 57,671 last year.

Nicola Lamond, of parents’ website Netmums, said: “A short stay in hospital can be good if the mum wants to get home, is experienced in looking after newborns and has had an easy birth. But increasingly we are seeing new mums discharged before they are ready as there is growing pressure on bed space.

“First-time mums need time to learn to feed and bathe their baby, while anyone who has had a difficult birth must have time to recover.

“With a rising birth rate, the answer must be to expand maternity services to match, not push mums out of the maternity unit way before they are ready.”

Gillian Smith, director of the Royal College of Midwives Scotland, said women going home quickly was preferable.

She said: “We do know that women want to go home quicker. There are no real advantages to keeping them in hospital and there is a possibility increases of picking a hospital-acquired infection.”

Our probe has also revealed mums face a health board postcode lottery over how long they are likely to spend in hospital giving birth.

Mums having their baby in Orkney last year stayed in hospital an average of 3.8 days, but in the Borders it was just one day, in Lanarkshire the stay was 1.2 days and in Fife 1.3 days.

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “The length of a mother’s stay in hospital following the birth of their child is influenced by a number of factors, including the type of delivery, the condition of mother and child and the hospital’s policy.

“In a 2013 survey of Scottish mothers’ experiences in hospital, 77% said their length of stay was about right.”

A distraught mum was forced to take refuge in a bed and breakfast when she was discharged from hospital just hours after giving birth.

Stacey Inglis was discharged from Oban’s Lorn and Islands District General Hospital with newborn baby daughter Eilidh, at 12.30am on June 6, 2013, despite there being no boats back to her home on the Isle of Mull until the following morning.

Stacey, from Tobermory, had experienced complications while giving birth and a helicopter was called in case she needed to be airlifted to another hospital.

But two-and-a-half hours after giving birth to her healthy 9lb 6oz baby, she was discharged and left to find a B&B for the night.

Stacey said: “Basically I had a bath, they checked the baby out and said, ‘You are ready to go’.

“I asked why we couldn’t stay and a midwife said they didn’t have the beds. It was a bit like Mary and Joseph there was no room at the inn.”

Stacey and her partner Michael Wright were pursuing a complaint against the hospital.

Rona Osborne was initially shocked to be told she would be able to go home just six hours after giving birth to her second child.

But the married 32-year-old quickly came round to the idea because it meant she could see three-year-old daughter Skye and even pick up a takeaway for dinner.

Rona, an NHS dietician, went into the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley at 5.30am on February 23.

Her son Kyle was born weighing 9lb 9oz at 10.30am and she was out of the hospital and on her way home to Newton Mearns in Glasgow by 4.30pm.

She said: “I was quite happy about it.

“I didn’t think it was going to happen. They just said, ‘You will get out today as we have brought in this six-hour policy which means if everything is okay you can go’.

“I’ve a three-year-old too and it was a bit disruptive for her, so we went. We picked up a chippy tea on the way home and that was us.”