Government pledges £2.45 million to improve childbirth care

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is awarding the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) almost £2 million to lead the first phase of the Avoiding Brain injuries in Childbirth (ABC) collaboration.

The ABC review aims to develop a nationally agreed approach for how staff monitor the condition of a baby during labour by:

• testing different approaches to monitoring babies during labour and surveying maternity staff to see how midwives and obstetricians currently identify when a baby is in distress during labour
• interviewing women and their birth partners on these varying approaches based on their personal experiences
• agreeing on a clear process to monitor babies and record readings during labour with a flowchart guide to decide when to escalate a case
• developing a nationally agreed approach to delivering babies via caesarean section when there are complications with the baby's positioning.

The review will be carried out through a partnership with the Royal College of Midwives and The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute at the University of Cambridge.

In addition, DHSC has also provided almost £450,000 to the RCOG to develop a new workforce planning tool to improve how maternity units calculate their medical staffing requirements, to better support families and babies.