Speak to a midwife about our care
An amazing group of like minded independent midwives who provide complete continuity of care and support each other so that you have complete peace of mind.
We cover all of London and areas around Southampton.
Keeping the Neighbourhood Midwives dream alive.
Full care packages, ante and postnatal only and postnatal only. Tongue tie services. Fully insured!
Introducing Leonie Bryan and Tess Mc Leish, formerly of Neighbourhood Midwives, now working as Independent Midwives offering great care to women in South East/South London.
Are you a midwife who wants to work in a different way?
From the very first day we launched our midwifery service 4 years ago, we have been committed to providing safe, high quality to all the women in our care and to supporting and nurturing our midwives to enjoy and develop a rich and varied range of skills and experience. We have now completed our first CQC inspection which was from the 11th - 13th of April this year.
You can read the whole report here: http://www.cqc.org.uk/provider/1-484403625/services
Neighbourhood Midwives remains fully insured to provide care to women planning to give birth at home or in hospital.
Please ring us if you would like any further information: 02088746624.
Click here to read more about how we deliver our service
We are delighted to announce that, on Weds Nov 9th, Neighbourhood Midwives signed our first NHS contract for a two year pilot with Waltham Forest CCG. WF is in one of the 7 pioneer areas working with the Maternity Transformation Programme Board to implement the recommendations of the 2016 Maternity Review around increasing choice and personalised care to women.
The agreed contract is the culmination of our many years of campaigning to provide a community based caseload midwifery service within the NHS and is the result of a great deal of hard work and commitment from a fantastic team at the CCG. As an employee owned social enterprise NM’s vision is to provide another choice for midwives as well as for women and their families.
Our new service will launch on Monday, 14th November in Waltham Forest and we look forward to working closely with our colleagues throughout the maternity service, providing women centred care and hopefully lots of homebirths!
A big thank you to all our midwives, supporters and everyone who has championed us along the way. There will be many more challenges ahead no doubt but for now it is time to pause for a moment, reflect on our journey so far and celebrate our achievement in reaching this milestone.
Writing a book is one of those things up there with sailing around the world or walking from Lands End to John O’Groats – it’s on a bucket ‘wish list’ for lots of people and, for most of us that is where it firmly stays.
So, when I was asked if I would like to write a book about homebirth - one of my favourite subjects, as anyone who knows me will confirm, I was in a dilemma for all of 5 minutes; did I have the time? No; Was I capable? i didn’t know but I was up for having a go; Did I want to? Definitely!
And so, over the course of last year or so, that is what I have been doing and the result – ‘The Homebirth Handbook - How to have your baby safely and calmly at home’ was published by Vermilion on Thursday, 2nd of June 2016.
Here at Neighbourhood Midwives we are very excited to share the press release about the publication of the Maternity Review - we hope that it heralds the changes which we have been campaigning for and are ready and keen to be part of:
Maternity services in England must become safer, more personalised, kinder, professional and more family-friendly.
That’s the vision of the National Maternity Review, which today (Tuesday) publishes its recommendations for how services should change over the next five years.
The NHS England commissioned review – led by independent experts and chaired by Baroness Julia Cumberlege – sets out wide-ranging proposals designed to make care safer and give women greater control and more choices.
The report finds that despite the increases in the number of births and the increasing complexity of cases, the quality and outcomes of maternity services have improved significantly over the last decade. The stillbirth and neonatal mortality rate in England fell by over 20% in the ten years from 2003 to 2013.[1] Maternal mortality in the UK has reduced from 14 deaths per 100,000 maternities in 2003/05 to 9 deaths per 100,000 maternities in 2011/13.[2] The conception rate for women aged under 18 in England, a key indicator of the life chances of our future generations, reduced by almost half, between 1998 and 2013.[3]
However, the review also found meaningful differences across the country, and further opportunities to improve the safety of care and reduce still births.
Prevention and public health have an important role to play, as smoking is still the single biggest identifiable risk factor for poor birth outcomes. Obesity among women of reproductive age is increasingly linked to risk of complications during pregnancy and health problems of the child.
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Photo credited to Personal Creations: www.personalcreations.com
What made you decide to choose an Independent midwife?
During my mid twenties, I was working in a large office with lots of women who were pregnant or had young children. I heard stories from them of the situations they’d faced at hospital during their births or post-natal period that filled me with dread. I was living in Wandsworth, known as Nappy Valley due to its high birth rate so I didn’t need much convincing that the local hospitals were overrun and unable to cope with the many women passing through their doors. As a child, I had had a bad experience at hospital and still as an adult, was highly uncomfortable in hospital or clinical environments so I was worried about going into hospital in labour and shutting down.
By chance, I saw an article about Annie from NM in the local SW Magazine. The headline was “One woman, one midwife” which summed up all my concerns. I kept it and once I was pregnant, I called Annie and we met to discuss the options. I still remember that first meeting. It turned out she had delivered a baby on our house with previous owners!
There was no question from then on that we would have an independent midwife looking after us. The care during my pregnancy was superb and I stopped seeing my NHS midwife after my 21wk scan - I simply didn’t need to as I had all I needed in Annie and my second midwife, Tina. Initially I had been planning a hospital birth with Annie attending, but as the time drew near, I strongly felt I wanted to be at home if I could be and that is testament to the relationship I had built with Annie and Tina.
