Over 10,000 babies are born in Leeds every year. Making the most of every child’s potential is an important goal in Leeds – it’s a commitment made by the Leeds Health and Well-being Board.
We all want the best for our children to help them be happy, healthy and reach their potential. From conception to the age of 2 is a very important time as it makes the biggest difference to your babies’ future. Working together, families and services can help all babies get the best start in life. We have a plan for how we will do this in Leeds, called the Leeds Maternity Strategy (2015-2020).
The Leeds Maternity Strategy will focus on five main project areas:
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- Choice
- Emotional Health
- Preparation for Parenthood
- Personalised Care
- Targeted Support
Our “What’s happening with Maternity in Leeds?” infographic shows some of the work we have undertaken in these five main project areas.
Over the last few months the MVP Parent Reps have been volunteering their time to meet with families on the antenatal, delivery and postnatal wards at both LGI and SJUH to gather views and feedback of maternity services in relation to the five main project areas. This feedback will help us achieve the goals set out within the Leeds Maternity Strategy to ensure that all babies get the best start in life. The feedback collected over the last few months was used to:
- Communicate messages of support to midwives from women and families receiving their care.
- Highlight the need to use one version of the Induction of Labour leaflet to keep information consistent across all LTHT sites.
- Help identify the need to include Emergency C-Section Aftercare information in leaflets
- Help identify the need for better communication between staff and parents in relation to the “Importance of Skin-to-Skin contact”
- This led to an ALWAYS event being held and as a result parental engagement is now being promoted widely with professionals throughout the Trust. Visit the NHS Always Event webpage to find out more.
- Help increase staff knowledge of local specialised services in perinatal mental health needs. As a result staff are now better able to signpost people who are using maternity services to the right support that they need.
- Co-design leaflets to promote self-care during pregnancy. For example, a perineal massage information leaflet explaining how perineal massage helps to reduce 3rd and 4th degree tears in birth
- Help establish the bereavement sub group which led to the opening of the new rainbow clinic supporting women and their partners who have previously suffered a child loss to attend clinics and scans separate to the mainstream clinic
- Help promote the new Lotus Midwifery Unit to help increase the numbers of ‘Active Births’ across the city
- Support the development of ‘Leeds Loves Homebirth’
- Promote the Smoking in Pregnancy survey with the CCG and Beckett University to find out the effectiveness of support offered in helping to lower or cut out smoking in pregnancy. Read the evaluation of the maternal smoking survey here.
- Update and re-design information boards across both LTHT sites on topics ranging from; Gestational Diabetes, Smoking, Healthy Eating, Safe Sleeping, Induction of Labour, Skin-to-Skin contact and breastfeeding, Antenatal Education, Perinatal Mental Health, Self Care and After care tips
