About 20,000 disclosures of domestic abuse are estimated to be made to maternity services in England every year, analysis has found.
The figures are likely to be an underestimate of the true scale of disclosures, according to experts, highlighting the role maternity professionals play in identifying abuse.
About 3.3% of maternity bookings made within NHS trusts across England involved a disclosure of current or non-recent domestic abuse.
Applying this proportion to national NHS maternity bookings activity suggests there are approximately 20,000 disclosures of domestic abuse made within maternity services in England every year.
Gill Walton, the chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives, said the findings “lay bare” something that midwives already know from their day-to-day practice.
“Midwives are often the only professional a pregnant woman sees regularly and alone, which makes them uniquely placed to spot the signs of domestic abuse and respond with care,” Walton said.
“But recognising a disclosure is only the first step – staff need proper, specialist training to know how to respond and services need the time and resources to follow through with support, so that no disclosure is ever a missed opportunity to protect a parent and their baby.
Experts have also called for midwives to receive adequate support and training on handling such domestic abuse disclosures, while also working long hours on busy maternity wards that can also face staff shortages.
“Midwives and other maternity staff play such a crucial role when it comes to reporting disclosures of domestic violence which are made to them. However, maternity staff also need better support so they know what the next steps are regarding what to do with these disclosures,” Veronica Oakeshott, the interim head of external affairs at Women’s Aid, said.
Source: The Guardian, 20 September 2026
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