Chelsea and her partner had been trying for a baby for two years. Following several miscarriages, she became pregnant again last spring. ‘We were overjoyed,’ the 26-year-old says. ‘We thought this time everything would finally be different.’

Joy rapidly turned to worry when Chelsea began to suffer headaches and visual disturbances and made several trips to Worthing Hospital, part of University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. Eventually, foetal distress was picked up during a scan; after a transfer to another hospital and an emergency Caesarean, Bonnie was born in September at just over 26 weeks’ gestation. She had suffered a brain bleed and had chronic lung disease.

‘I knew something wasn’t right,’ Chelsea says. ‘But when I tried to raise it, I often felt dismissed. I was made to feel I was overreacting because of my history of miscarriages.’

Bonnie was transferred back to Worthing Hospital after weeks in intensive care. There, Chelsea says, staff failed to keep her and her partner informed of their daughter’s health or treatment. ‘We weren’t told when she developed sepsis. We didn’t know about brain scans. And we later discovered she had received six blood transfusions without our consent.’ Bonnie died in November; ‘unexpected neonatal death’ was listed as the cause. Worthing Hospital formally acknowledged a number of failings during her care.

The UK has the third-highest maternal mortality rate in western Europe

The UK has the third-highest maternal mortality rate in western Europe

This case forms part of a terrifying picture: if you are planning to give birth in an English NHS hospital in the foreseeable future, there are only two ‘outstanding’ maternity units in the country in ‘outstanding’ hospitals, according to the Care Quality Commission: the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford and Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in London. By contrast, 18 per cent of maternity services in the country are considered ‘inadequate’ for safety. Like 47 per cent of maternity services in England, Worthing Hospital’s maternity unit has a safety rating that ‘requires improvement’.

Maternity care in Britain is in a state of crisis. On average, a baby is born in the UK every 56 seconds. The NHS has a responsibility to see both mothers and babies safely through pregnancy and labour. In England it is failing on both counts. While the number of stillbirths and neonatal deaths is slowly dropping, a surge in childbirth legal payouts suggests that a growing number of babies are being born with life-altering injuries such as cerebral palsy and brain damage. Meanwhile, the number of women injured or dying during or after pregnancy is rising.

As of 2023, the latest year for which the World Health Organisation has complete data, the UK has the third-highest maternal mortality rate in western Europe, behind Luxembourg and Portugal. An average of 12 in every 100,000 women are........

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