http://www.maternalmatters.co.uk/

Maternal Matters, Prestwich (2025)

13/12/2025

✈️ Flying During Pregnancy: What You Need to Know

✈️A very FAQ for community midwives, my own experience is ⬇️

💙I’m a NHS midwife
❌Cabin crew
🤰🏽Flew during each of my 3 pregnancies

Flying this Xmas? Quick guide to flying safely and confidently 💺🌍

✨ Most airlines allow travel:
• Average to 34 weeks for single pregnancies
• twins or multiples
(Some airlines may vary slightly)

📄 Medical letters:
• Usually not required before 28 weeks
• Often required after 28–32 weeks, stating:
– Due date
– That the pregnancy is uncomplicated
– Fit to fly

⭐️Some midwives & GPs won’t issue fit to fly, sometimes you have to pay?

🛫 Best time to fly:
The second trimester (14–27 weeks) is often the most comfortable 🤍
Less nausea, more energy, and a smaller bump.

🧦 Comfort & safety tips:
• Wear seatbelt low across the hips
• Walk and stretch regularly 🚶‍♀️
• Stay hydrated 💧
• Consider compression stockings
• Choose an aisle seat for easy movement
•Alert crew if you feel unwell in any scenario
•Take your pregnancy notes or app

🚨 Check before you book:
• Airline-specific rules & policies
• Travel insurance that covers pregnancy
• Destination healthcare access

💬 Always check with your midwife or doctor before flying — especially if you have complications.

Pregnant and travelling? You’ve got this 💪✨
Save this post for later & Tag someone packing their hospital bag AND a suitcase 💼🤍

Did you go abroad during pregnancy ? What was your experience?

PS cabin crew are trained to deliver babies, and I have known them to be born on board 🙈🙈🙈

✈️🤰

13/12/2025

💙The film delivery💙

🤩Just wow have you watched it?

lankester

💙Swipe to read my thoughts
💙It really gave me all the feels
💙Perhaps very triggering for some
💙No spoilers here
💙Just an NHS midwife and my experiences
💙Have you watched it?

Tell me your POV?

💙I do believe it will help us midwives, in an era where our profession is under threat and we are being stretched beyond our limits!
💙We can still be proud midwives without defending the system that is harming everyone 💔
💙We have to speak 🗣️ up for urgent action now ⚡️

11/12/2025

🤰🏽Midwifery update my views🤰🏽

📢There’s a lot of negativity around midwifery in the news right now — especially with the national maternity inquiry — and while it’s tough to hear, we have to speak the truth about the failings being exposed 📰⚠️💬

Families deserve honesty 👨‍👩‍👧❤️.
Midwives deserve systems that actually support them 👩‍⚕️🤝.
And women deserve safe, dignified, consistent care every single time 🤰✨.

We can’t fix what we’re not willing to face — and the need for urgent action has never been clearer 🔥📢

Yes, incredible midwives are out there doing their absolute best every day 🤍👶🌟
But that doesn’t erase the systemic issues that keep letting people down 🚫🏥

Accountability isn’t negativity — it’s how we move forward. It’s how we rebuild trust. It’s how we create the maternity services women and babies deserve 💛🌿✨

But great things are happening behind the scenes we won’t give up, we’ve united and we keep fighting. These amazing accounts support me and MWM

11/12/2025

✨ Preventing UTIs During Pregnancy ✨

😫They are really common & can be so uncomfortable how can you prevent them?

Pregnancy brings lots of changes — and unfortunately, UTIs can be one of them 🤰💦
The good news? A few simple habits can help lower your risk 👇

🤍 Stay well hydrated — water helps flush bacteria
🤍 Don’t “hold it” — empty your bladder regularly, but don’t go for “just in case toilet visits” this can reduce bladder capacity long term
🤍As your bump grows lead forward to empty your bladder effectively
🤍 Always wipe front to back
🤍 P*e after s*x to help clear bacteria
🤍Use a trusted lubricant during s*x such as
🤍 Wear breathable cotton underwear
🤍 Avoid scented soaps, washes, or douches
🤍Incontience is not normal, it’s preventable tell your midwife or GP if you experience this!
🤍Practice pelvic floor exercises during pregnancy
🤍 Consider pregnancy-safe probiotics — they may help support healthy vaginal & urinary bacteria (always check with your healthcare provider first)I recommend

🤍Take them especially if you are prescribed antibiotics ✨

UTIs during pregnancy are common and treatable, but they shouldn’t be ignored. If you notice burning, urgency, pain, or cloudy urine, always check in with your healthcare provider asap 🩺

Your body is doing something incredible — take care of it 🤍

Did you suffer UTI during pregnancy?

09/12/2025

I was cabin crew before I became a midwife — and the contrast in safety culture is impossible to ignore ✈️➡️👶

Please sign campaign for midwifery safety link in bio if you agree ⚡️

If cabin crew approached safety the way maternity care is currently forced to, no plane would ever leave the runway.

Before take-off, cabin crew stop everything to run safety checks. They don’t skip them because the flight is busy. They don’t ignore warning lights because they’re short-staffed. And they don’t get blamed later for disasters caused by systemic failures.

Yet in the current NHS midwifery climate, safety checks are often treated as optional when staffing is unsafe, workloads are extreme, and pressure is relentless 🚨

Cabin crew are empowered to ground a plane if safety is compromised.
Midwives raise concerns — and are told to “just manage,” “prioritise,” or “cope.”

Cabin crew work with clear ratios, protected procedures, and a culture where risk is escalated, not normalised.
Midwives are working in conditions where abnormal has become routine — missed observations, delayed escalation, and moral injury are becoming the norm, not the exception 💔

When something goes wrong in aviation, the focus is on systems, culture, and learning.
In maternity care, individuals — often midwives — are too frequently left carrying the blame for environments they did not create.

Women deserve the same safety culture in birth as passengers expect in the air.
And midwives deserve the same protections, authority, and respect as professionals responsible for human lives.

Safety should never depend on goodwill, sacrifice, or silence.
If it’s not safe to fly, the plane doesn’t take off ✋✈️
If it’s not safe to provide care — midwives must be heard 🛑

Do you agree?

09/12/2025

Birth trauma is real — and in midwifery, listening can be life-changing 🤍

Jo and spoke yesterday, she’s bravely shared her deeply traumatic story on along with other courageous women. It’s always struck me how she never wants to blame midwives ✨🙏♥️So humble in her circumstances, I’m tired of seeing triggered midwives, if you don’t behave like that then it’s not you….ITS NEVER about us!!!

Too many women walk away from birth feeling unheard, dismissed, or powerless. Trauma isn’t defined by what should have been beautiful — it’s defined by how a woman experienced it. Loss of control. Lack of consent. Not being listened to. Being told “this is normal” when something felt wrong 💔

As midwives, listening is not an optional extra — its fundamental care 👂

And this is the uncomfortable part: it cannot be about us.
If a woman shares trauma and we feel defensive, triggered, or blamed — that feeling belongs to us to process, not her to carry. Good intentions do not erase harm. Being “part of the system” does not absolve responsibility 🛑

When midwives centre their own discomfort — “I did my best,” “I was under pressure,” “That’s not how I remember it” — women are silenced again. Trauma deepens when disclosure is met with denial or self-protection 🚨

Listening builds trust 🤝
Listening restores autonomy 🗣️
Listening means holding space even when it’s hard to hear 🫂

Trauma-informed care requires humility, reflection, and accountability. It means being willing to hear when midwifery — or we ourselves — were part of the problem, without making it personal or performative 🌱

Every woman deserves to have her voice believed in one of the most vulnerable moments of her life ✨
Listening is not soft care. It’s safe care 🛡️

08/12/2025

🎄My first December LEAVE🎄

🎄Did you know clinical NHS staff cannot request Xmas & new year weeks off?
🎄We work 24/7 365 days a year!
🎄YES even Xmas day! On calls too!
🎄Thats maybe why I don’t really get excited for Xmas!
🎄ofc I make the effort for the kids’
🎄This year I took Safia’s birthday week off!
🎄Haris is 17 and passed his test!
🎄we went to Asia Manchester, it was phenomenal!
🎄I decorated the house and a huge tree gifted us 🙌✨
🎄My brother decorated for me and created a gallery wall that included and other local artists! I love it ❤️
🎄So it’s been a really productive week!
🎄Feeling a little bit more like Christmas ✨🙌🎄
🎄But IMO it’s always about family time rather than pressure to BUY everything!

🎄Tell me how you’re preparing for Xmas? And if you’re a big Xmas fan or not?

♥️Abigail

05/12/2025

📣Whistleblowing in Midwifery:📣

Speaking Up to Keep Birth Safe 👶✨

📣This was me in on 2022 when I resigned from the NHS in 2022, I never shared this, I regret that now! I also spoke up on many platforms including IG
I’m support all these campaigns ⬇️⬇️⬇️

📣In midwifery, our primary responsibility is to maintain safety and dignity of the women and babies we care for. Sometimes that means raising concerns—even when it feels uncomfortable.

📣 NMC & NHS urge people to speak up, however when we do we can fear ⬇️⬇️⬇️

1.reprisals
2.judgement (your a traitor)
3.career ending
4.Bullying

📣Whistleblowing shouldn’t be about blame.
It’s about protecting families, supporting colleagues, and creating a culture where doing the right thing is valued, not feared, unfortunately that’s not happening in some maternity units, because they don’t want you to uncover the truths!

📣When we speak up, we make midwifery stronger. 💛
When we stay silent, we risk what matters most.

📣Have you or would you speak up? I’d love to know your thoughts!!!

⬇️⬇️⬇️

04/12/2025

✨ UK Midwives Are at Breaking Point — And It’s Time for Change ✨

⭐️A petition in my bio by please sign now ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️

Behind every safe birth could be midwife who is overworked, understaffed, and often running on empty. In the UK today, midwife working conditions have reached crisis point — and the impact is being felt by families across the country.

👩‍⚕️ Chronic understaffing means midwives are caring for more women than is safe.
⏰ Long, exhausting shifts with missed breaks have become the norm, not the exception.
💬 Many report burnout, anxiety, and the feeling that they can’t provide the standard of care they’re trained for, compassion fatigue & bullying & toxic leadership are rife 😢
🏥 Meanwhile, thousands are leaving the profession — and without urgent action, maternity services will continue to struggle.

⚡️This isn’t just a workforce issue.
It’s a women’s health issue. A family issue. A future generation issue.

Midwives & YOU deserve:
❤️ Safe staffing levels
❤️ Better pay that reflects their responsibility and expertise
❤️ Conditions that allow them to give every woman and baby the care they deserve

We can’t keep asking midwives to pour from an empty cup.
Our maternity services depend on them — now we need to show up for them.

30/11/2025

♥️Watch me grow♥️

✨Reminding myself daily atm why I became a midwife

♥️Life in utero
♥️The womb our first home
♥️We have all BEEN BORN we need midwives
♥️One of my favorite things to paint is this
♥️This is a full term fetus
♥️One of the reasons I became a midwife was the fascination of fetal development and the capability of our bodies to grow and birth them…..🙌🏽
♥️Casually growing organs, teeth, bones hair!
♥️Birth will never not take my breath away!
♥️My favorite historical artist is Leonardo da Vinci…
♥️Tell me one reason why you want/ become a midwife?
♥️Tell me your fascination of your babies growth during your pregnancy?

👇🏽let me know in the comments

26/11/2025

✨ NHS Maternity Services — Is There Hope? ✨

🙈I’ll be truthful atm I feel heavy, question everyday how have we reached this point?

🤯The truth? NHS maternity care is broken, we struggle everyday across the uk
Staff shortages, overstretched midwives, rising interventions & CS , physiological birth criticism, doulas & free birth demonized, and too many women feeling unheard, unsupported & harmed, Huge systemic issues affecting everyone!

💔 The Current Reality
• Unsafe staffing levels
• Little continuity of care
• High induction + intervention rates
• More reports of birth trauma
• Parents feeling lost in a pressured system

On the flip side 🤔

🌱 Is there Hope? Change ?
• More women/familes, birth workers are speaking out
• Midwives whistle blowers demanding safer conditions
• Birth activism + grassroots change are growing
• Parents are becoming more informed and confident in their rights

🌸 Is it too late? Beyond repair?

I’d love to know your thoughts? Send HELP meantime…

⚡️You deserve safe, respectful, human-centred care — and the movement for better maternity services is only getting louder, but we need ACTION ⚡️⚡️⚡️

Maternal Matters

13/12/2025

13/12/2025

11/12/2025

11/12/2025

09/12/2025

09/12/2025

08/12/2025

05/12/2025

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30/11/2025

26/11/2025

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