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Intervention

… I also feel I'm able to help do something about the terrible condition that killed our wife and mother. Something, anything that prevents another's death is good.

Children's bedtime tonight was prompt and relatively struggle free, but Emily interrupted our bedtime rituals with, 'Daddy, I really miss Carly [our nanny] and Mummy.'

"We'll see Carly again soon, darling, and..."

"But …

Information for Health Professionals

CEMACH

Saving Mothers' Lives 2003-2005

Genital tract sepsis: Specific recommendations (7, page 97)

All health professionals must be aware of the symptoms and signs of maternal sepsis and critical illness and of the rapid, potentially lethal course of severe sepsis and septic shock:

Maternal tachycardia, …

Friday's Child is nearly ready

Thanks to Virgin Books and my hard-working editor, Friday's Child is almost finished. It'll be ready to print in a few weeks, in time for the June launch. It's got an updated cover as well, and for the first time I've seen the full book jacket - now I can imagine it on the bookshelves. I hope the …

Stretching Midwives

… struggle in labour ward crisis . The Evening Standard has also run it, Shocking figures show mothers and babies are at risk due to chronic shortage of midwives .

This isn't a new story, but the figures go on and on showing the crisis that maternity services are sliding into.

I'm just glad it keeps popping up in the news. If there's enough pressure on the government and their promises, …

Screen for GAS

… the NHS not consider what yet another death could cost it?

If there was anything that could stop mothers dying, surely a responsible government would want to implement it, when 30% of the population carry Group A Strep?

I hear so many stories from mothers who have only just survived a Group A Strep infection that, if the problem is not taken seriously, it will be a time bomb that we are …

No news would have been good news

There's been a fair bit of news recently (see here and here ) about two poor mothers who gave birth on the same day, in the same hospital, and who both died within three days, just before Christmas. The coverage has focused on the fact that they both had a Group A Strep infection, and there has been much talk about infections (hospital and community acquired) and superbugs. …

Further reading

… causes and effects.

Confidential Enquiry into Maternal And Child Health

CEMACH Report: Why Mothers Die 2000-2002

CEMACH Report: Saving Mothers' Lives 2003-2005

The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

Encyclopaedia Britannica: Puerperal Fever

General Practice Notebook - Puerperal Infection

Healthcare A2Z

Unfamiliarity breeds infection

I have now downloaded a copy of "Saving Mothers' Lives" and am reading through it. A few paragraphs under the Genital tract sepsis chapter have caught my attention:

"As in previous Reports there was failure or delay in diagnosing sepsis, failure to appreciate the severity of the woman’s condition with resultant delays in referral …

Masses of bodies

I feel full of despair. Although I haven't seen a full copy of the Saving Mothers' Lives report, I have had sections of it read to me, and other parts have been reproduced in various news articles today - most probably from a heavily edited press release.

All of the talk is of obesity and migrant mothers. This is a distortion of what I know to be true. When the report …

Floods

What a whirlwind. After yesterday's Independent article, and with the impending release of 'Saving Mothers' Lives', I have been flooded with requests for television interviews on morning TV and news programmes.

Part of me wants to do them, even though I can't do them all.

The increase of sepsis, both in numbers and as a percentage of all maternal deaths tells me I need to be campaigning as …