30 people can attend a party together. You can take flights to international destinations. People can go to restaurants, pubs, drink and party with friends. But, you cannot get your partner to come with you during childbirth and other important hospital appointments. London based producer, presenter and chef, Shrimoyee Chakraborty who is 31 weeks pregnant is campaigning for #ButNotMaternity which has nearly 400,000 signatures on change.org so far.
In a social media post, Shrimoyee wrote, “Right now the rules in nhs.uk state that women do not have to labour alone but partners are only allowed to be with the mother when she is 4cm dilated or more. They are not allowed in for the start of an induction. They are not allowed in for the pre operation preparation for a Caesarean section. They are not allowed to come onto the ward with mum and baby after birth, they must leave shortly after birth, irrelevant of mothers emotional, mental or physical needs. This includes visits back to the hospital in the coming days should she need to stay in longer. Visits are not permitted. Should you live a bit of a distance from the hospital there is a big risk your partner would miss the birth, as we all know labour is totally unpredictable and it could go from 4cm to baby is coming in a very short time. Not to mention if something went wrong, mum comes into trouble or has complications”
Speaking to Asian Voice, Shrimoyee said, “My experience with the NHS in the last seven months has been awful. I had never been given a growth chart of my baby and I was only told about this last week when I was 29 weeks pregnant. When someone asked where the growth chart was, I replied oh, I’ve never been given one. Then I was given a growth chart saying the baby should have been monitored weeks ago. It worries me because I expect the NHS to care of the fundamentals and I understand that they’re lacking staff right now. I don’t think it’s the NHS’ fault, it’s the government’s fault with no funding and not enough doctors. Even when you go to the midwives office, they seem like 18th century offices with old computers, no printers. They still use an old school heart beat monitor to check the heartbeat of the baby. It’s just ridiculous.”
When she was 14 weeks pregnant, she suddenly started bleeding. “I went to the hospital at 10 pm at night, because of bureaucratic nonsense, they kept pushing me from one ward to the other. They kept saying that we’ll only see you at fourteen weeks and I was 13 weeks 4 days pregnant. They pushed me around for two hours till I had to literally fight to be seen by a doctor. I said I’m not leaving till you tell if the baby is alive or not. For me, the whole experience with the NHS has been pretty traumatic to say the least,” Shrimoyee explained.
So far, she has gone alone for every scan. “We had to go private twice, just so that my partner could see the baby. And these are really scary scans - like the 12 weeks and 20 weeks scans. That’s the moment when they can tell you that the baby doesn’t have a heartbeat. There are many stories like that where women are left to grieve alone in the waiting room while their partners wait outside. Basically, your partner can go to a pub with six people, drinking. You can go with your partner to the cinema but you can’t take your partner to see an important scan where you might hear something very traumatic or be able to share very positive news,” she added.
Right now, she doesn’t think that there’s any other option besides going private. She said, “Looking at Boris Johnson who is willing to break international European laws, I don’t think he has paid any attention to maternity. All he cares about is ‘reviving the economy’ whereas God knows what he’s doing.”
As she and her partner are trying to figure out the logistics to go to a private hospital for the birth of their child, she said, “I cannot imagine going into labour on my own.” Stating how therapy was a taboo for her parents’ generation, Shrimoyee told us that she and her partner have been taking individual therapy sessions and couples therapy to cope with the mental pressures of Covid and the ordeal with the NHS of dealing with the pregnancy alone.
Osteopathy and doula, Avni Trivedi seconds that thought. She told Asian Voice, “It’s imperative that partners are allowed for the entirety of labour/ birth. If a woman feels vulnerable and isolated, it lowers the levels of oxytocin, which is necessary for birth, breastfeeding and bonding, and heightens the stress response. Birthing women should feel safe and supported, and the unfamiliar environment of the hospital is lessened by having the presence of a partner. For a woman recovering from a difficult birth or a caesarean birth, her partner is needed to take care of her and the baby. It’s unacceptable that pubs are open to customers, but women are expected to be on their own during such an important time in their lives.”
