Baby boom? (From Daily Echo)

Baby boom?

7:30am Friday 3rd October 2008 in

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CRACKERS had been pulled, Hampshire was bracing itself for a blanket of New Year snow and it was the usual tired repeats on TV.

Nine months later midwives at a Southampton hospital have been overwhelmed by a sudden baby boom.

Maternity staff at the Princess Anne had to turn away expectant mums this week so they could deal with 23 new arrivals in 24 hours.

The closure meant three mums-to-be who had planned to give birth in Southampton were diverted to Winchester’s Royal Hampshire County Hospital and Poole General Hospital in Dorset.

Closed doors The sudden boom was the third time the hospital, which handles 5,600 deliveries a year, had closed its doors to new arrivals this year.

The newly opened New Forest Birthing Centre in Ashurst, which replaced closed centres in Romsey, Lymington and Hythe, was also full, with two mums giving birth in the early hours of Tuesday.

Birthing groups put the sudden increase down to a national baby boom and said more needed to be done to help midwives.

The south-east saw a rise of 2.7 per cent in the number of births from last year and across the UK 90,000 more babies were born compared to six years ago.

The National Childbirth Trust (NCT) is calling on the Government and hospital chiefs to make sure women going into labour are not turned away from where their baby’s birth has been planned.

A spokesman said: “While temporary closures may occasionally be necessary on safety grounds, these should be rare.

“Maternity services should be managed so units are not closed because of insufficient capacity.

“Telling women they might be turned away causes anxiety and distress, and may have safety implications.”

Judy Slessar from the Royal College of Midwifery said the closures show the hospital could be struggling with the increase in births, and that it is affected by the growing Eastern European population in Southampton.

“There have been 2,700 more babies in the south-east than last year,” she said.

“It’s very hard to accurately predict how many births you could have in 24 hours and 23 is quite exceptional.”

Maria Dore, head of midwifery for the hospital’s trust, said the hospital was closed for nine hours on Tuesday morning to handle the increase.

“The safety of mothers and babies is our primary concern and in close liaison with our neighbouring hospitals in Winchester and Poole, we were able to safely divert three women,” she said.

Ms Dore played down claims the city was in the grip of a baby boom but said there had been a noticeable rise in births in Southampton, including six per cent more European mothers in the first three months of 2008 compared to last year.

Romsey MP Sandra Gidley, who campaigned against the closure of local birthing units, said it showed the hospital was struggling with staffing levels.

“It is quite worrying. If it is the third time it has happened this year then they clearly having staffing problems.

“The hospital needs to make sure that by reducing costs they are not putting women’s lives in danger.”