Births in Midwife-Led and Community Settings: January 2022–March 2026

Gloucestershire NHS Trust publish various statistics from the maternity dashboard each month.

Until recently the caesarean rate was left out - many more useful figures are also left unclear,
but this morning one thing suddenly jumped out at me.

The no. of births taking place in each setting have been published for some time.

And since G-MAG are concerned with the number of community births and keeping this as a strong option for women (because they offer better safety outcomes for women and babies).

Community birth over time is a useful analysis:

Click below to go to the website and see the month by month published statistics👇

Here I have brought them together into one table to show, month by month, how many babies were born in midwife-led and community settings: Aveta Birth Centre, Gloucestershire Royal Birth Unit, Stroud Birth Centre and at home.

The data shows a clear fall over time in the proportion of births taking place outside the obstetric delivery suite. GMAG will now be asking Gloucestershire NHS to explain why this has happened.

We expect one possible explanation may be “changing population need” or increased clinical complexity,
but we want to see the actual evidence behind this claim.

The population may indeed be changing - but the evidence for rounding women up into obstetric units is lacking.

What is also lacking is any evidence that caesarean birth for these women is safer.

We have also heard from numerous women that they are being told caesarean birth is the only option for them
- this is then recorded as ‘maternal request’

Our next step will be to submit Freedom of Information requests asking for safety outcome data by place of birth, including neonatal admissions, maternal deaths, neonatal deaths, emergency transfers, postpartum haemorrhage, severe perineal trauma, caesarean birth, instrumental birth, and other relevant safety indicators.

This will help establish whether decisions about maternity service redesign are being based on clear evidence — or whether midwife-led and community birth options are being reduced without proper scrutiny.