- Conference
- 2024 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 18 September 2023
- Decision
- Carried
Conference is extremely concerned that in 2023 Black women are still five times more likely to die in childbirth or shortly afterwards. Women of mixed ethnicity have 3 times the risk, and Asian women almost twice the risk. Black women are also at an increased risk of having a pre-term birth, stillbirth, neonatal death or a baby born with low birth weight. The government acknowledges these facts, along with the fact that the disparity in maternal death between Black women and white women is widening1.
Data from 2019-2021 used in a study by Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK (Mbrrace UK) found that maternal mortality rates for Black women have been largely unchanged for the last decade or more2.
Conference is appalled that despite pledges from the Minister for Equalities, Kemi Badenoch, and the Minister for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention, and Mental Health, Nadine Dories, the Health Secretary Steve Barclay, said in 2023, “We do not believe a target and strategy is the best approach towards progress”3.
Conference applauds the work of the Women and Equalities Committee, which hit back at the Government decision to ultimately not set racial targets and accused NHS leadership of underestimating the extent to which racism plays a role in perpetuating inequalities. Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, Rt Hon Caroline Nokes MP, said: “The Government’s commitment to ending maternal health disparities is welcome, as is its promise to scope out a review of maternity staff training and update us on the progress of the Maternity Disparities Taskforce. However, I am afraid its response stops short of the significant action we need to end these appalling disparities in maternal deaths.”
An article in the Lancet in January 2023 acknowledged that “the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to the racial reckoning that took place in the summer of 2020, has placed racial disparities at the forefront of contemporary discourses. Mounting research suggests that Black women bear a disproportionate burden of global maternal mortality and morbidity rates. These disparities in maternal health have persisted through the coronavirus pandemic…”. Conference believes that epistemic injustice, defined as unfairly preventing someone from properly communicating their ideas or making sense of their experiences, is endemic in the NHS4. Examples of this in maternity care include patients having concerns about their health and their pregnancy dismissed or treated as trivial, being passed off as “dramatic”, questions being brushed aside or not taken seriously, and practitioners not taking patients’ pain seriously. This happens even in severe cases, such as instances where caesarean-section stitches are bleeding and infected.
Conference recognises that the impact on migrant women may be worse. Research by the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) found that exemptions from charging were not working. Vulnerable women were being wrongly invoiced for care and Trusts were aggressively pursuing debts from women who are manifestly unable to pay. This is despite the fact that, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), one in four migrant women is a survivor of sexual violence, and forced migration, or may be a survivor of female genital mutilation (FGM).
Conference believes that the time for action is now, and calls on the National Women’s Committee to:
1)Work with the National Black Members’ Committee to gain a deeper understanding of Black women’s experiences of maternity and post-natal care.
2. To campaign with Maternity Action to protect and improve maternity care and support for Black women.
3. To encourage branches and regions to affiliate to Maternity Action and ask that they consider inviting a speaker to their Branch / Region to highlight the work of Maternity Action.
4. To work alongside the NEC and our political funds to lobby the UK Government to implement a comprehensive strategy to address the issue.
1 & 2 Government working with midwives, medical experts, and academics to investigate BAME maternal mortality – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
3 Government rejects targets to reduce Black maternal deaths – Voice Online (voice-online.co.uk)
4 Black women are at greater risk of maternal death in the UK – here’s what needs to be done (theconversation.com)