National Federation of Womenʼs Institutes - More Midwives

The NFWI has launched a campaign for More Midwives campaign after a resolution on the employment of more midwives was passed at the 2012 AGM with a 96% majority.

Read about our research

Support Overdue details the state of maternity care today.

Take Action now

What you can do to help the campaign and useful resources.

There is a shortage of midwives in the UK, resulting in fragmented, rushed care and extra demands on maternity services.Midwives are facing increasing pressure with chronic staff shortages, the ongoing baby boom and increasing numbers of complications in pregnancy. Combined, these challenges are making it harder to deliver a high standard of care to women and their children and mean that despite increases in the number of NHS midwives, maternity units are still short staffed. 

What we've done so far:

• Collected almost 30,000 signatures calling for urgent action to adequately resource maternity services and improve the quality of care.
   
  In partnership with parenting charity NCT, we launched a survey for women to tell us about their maternity experiences. Over 5,500 women shared their stories.
   
  We asked 141 trusts in England and Boards in Wales to tell us about how they provide maternity care for women in their local areas.

From this,we've put together a report about the state of maternity care and what we think needs to change. Support Overdue: Women's Experiences of Maternity Services.

2012 AGM Resolution

Read about the passing of the More Midwives Resolution by our members at the 2012 AGM at the Royal Albert Hall, London.