John Clarke

I have read this piece with disbelief and deep sadness. It presents a version of maternity safety history that is extraordinarily difficult to reconcile with the evidence from successive independent investigations. The claim that “normal birth at any cost” was an “offhand comment” from the Morecambe Bay Investigation is simply wrong. The Morecambe Bay inquiry examined this issue extensively. It found a maternity unit where an “over-zealous pursuit of the natural childbirth approach led at times to inappropriate and unsafe care.” It documented failures of risk assessment, delayed escalation, reluctance to involve obstetricians and what the investigation described as “incorrect and damaging practices.” This was not a glib remark. It was a central finding of an independent investigation into the avoidable deaths and serious harm suffered by mothers and babies. Nor was Morecambe Bay an isolated case. Subsequent independent maternity investigations have identified strikingly similar themes. Most recently, the Nottingham investigation has described cases where significant concerns should have prompted intervention, yet “the quest for normal birth continued.” Against that evidence, I find the quotation attributed here to Professor Soo Downe particularly troubling. She suggests that “a few highly influential individuals” persuaded politicians, journalists and lawyers that babies were dying because midwives were pursuing an ideology. I assume I am one of those individuals. My son Joshua died at Furness General Hospital in 2008. I spent years campaigning for a proper independent investigation into what happened to him and other babies. It was that independent investigation - not me - that reached these clear and well-evidenced conclusions. Other independent investigations have subsequently identified similar problems. To suggest that a handful of “influential voices” somehow created this narrative and persuaded politicians, journalists and others to believe it turns reality on its head. It is particularly troubling when bereaved families who fought for these failures to be properly investigated are portrayed in this way. Families did not create the evidence. Our babies and loved ones are part of it. This is not an argument against midwives or physiological birth. Nor does it deny legitimate concerns about intervention, staffing, resources or inequalities. Those are important issues that deserve serious and thoughtful debate. But simplistic and misleading narratives like this are deeply harmful. They risk dismissing hard-learned lessons from repeated tragedies and discrediting the families who fought to ensure those lessons were heard. We will not make maternity care safer by rewriting history or replacing complex problems with overly simplistic narratives. Childbirth without medical intervention can be a wonderful outcome. But it must never become a target pursued at the expense of mothers and babies who develop complications and need timely medical care.