Major maternity announcements for Swansea Bay as services re-open

Date: 10th September 2024

The midwife-led Birth Centre at Neath Port Talbot Hospital is re-opening on 16th September, after a three-year pause in service.

Swansea Bay UHB is also re-introducing its Home Birth Service from 21st October.

Staffing pressures had led to both services being temporarily being suspended because of safety concerns.

However, following a £750,000 investment by the health board and the recruitment of 35 hospital-based and community staff, both services are now able to resume - offering families a wider choice of how and where to welcome their babies into the world.

The decision was made at a special meeting of Swansea Bay University Health Board today, Tuesday 10^th September 2024. Follow this link to read the board papers from the special meeting of Swansea Bay University Health Board.

It came on the back of months of careful analysis and engagement with staff, as well as regular feedback from service users asking for the Birth Centre and Home Birth services to be reinstated. 

Swansea Bay UHB Chair, Jan Williams, said: “We are delighted to see these important maternity services will once more be offered to families.

“Being able to choose where to give birth is so important, and we share the disappointment of families who have not had that breadth of choice available to them over the past three years.

“The decision to suspend these services in 2021 was not taken lightly, but it was clear that they could not be reinstated until we were assured they could be run safely.”

Swansea Bay’s interim Chief Executive, Dr Richard Evans, said: “This has been a long and challenging journey, and we are very pleased that we are now in a position to re-open these important services.

“As well as the investment and recruitment drive needed to make these services safe and sustainable, we’ve had a comprehensive and robust programme of work in place which has focused on creating the conditions for the safe reinstatement of these services.

“This will now begin with the Birth Centre on 16^th September, and continue with the Home Birth Service in the weeks following.”

Clinical Director of Midwifery, Kathryn Greaves, said: “This is really good news for the families who use our maternity services in Swansea Bay, because there will once more be a wide choice of options available for women giving birth here.

“For women who are low risk, the benefits of being able to choose to go to a midwifery-led birthing unit, or to have their baby in their own home, are widely documented. 

“First time mothers are less likely to need a caesarean, and women who have had a baby previously are less likely to need an epidural or an episiotomy; or need a caesarean, or a birth which uses instruments.”

Since September 2021, women have given birth in Singleton Hospital, either on the Obstetric Labour Ward, which is designed for higher-risk or more complex births, or its Bay Birthing Unit which is used for lower risk births.

This year alone, 57 women have had low risk midwifery-led care on the Obstetric Labour Ward at Singleton. They gave birth in the obstetric unit because the Bay Birthing Unit was at capacity. For the same period, 223 women birthed in the Bay Birthing Unit, some of whom could have been home births or births in the Neath Port Talbot Birth Centre, had the choice been available.

As part of re-opening of these services, home labour assessments will also be reintroduced, along with antenatal education classes, provided by our community midwives.

Women are being urged to talk to their midwife about their birth place options. Their midwives can provide recommendations around the safest birth setting according to their individual needs. For contact details of community midwives, please go here.