As president of the National Childbirth Trust and a member of the Expert Maternity Group, the government working party that drew up the Changing Childbirth report in the 1990s, Eileen Hutton could use her positions to present women’s perspectives to the policymakers. Produced in 1993, the report built on the recommendations of the Winterton report of the previous year. It advocated continuity of care (access for women to the same midwife throughout pregnancy and birth), choice (how and where to give birth) and control (given the information to make their own decisions). Both reports were widely heralded for presenting the concept of women-centred care and reversing the official line that hospital was always the safest place to give birth. Eileen, a mother of three, firmly

Source: The Times March 21, 2020 00:11 UTC