Vogue - The grim reality of being a midwife right now (18 November 2022)

Summary

This article for Vogue explores the experience of a midwife working in an overstretched maternity unit in England. Melissa Newman, who has been a midwife for nearly six years, highlights the impact of staff shortages on midwives—she describes how she does not have time to eat, avoids drinking because she will not have time to go to the toilet, and sometimes works fifteen hours without any break. She calls on the Government for more funding to fix the crisis facing NHS maternity services, and the NHS more widely.