This morning I read the extract of Friday's Child, in the Daily Mail. It's strange, reading my words in such a condensed form. They are my words, and it is my story, but only such a small part of it.

It is humbling to read the comments people have left under the story, and so many. Really humbling.

The trouble with it being so shortened is that, inevitably, there wasn't room for many details, so it saddens me to be criticised, even ever so slightly, for not doing something that in fact we did.

We, Jessica and I, believed that she was being properly looked after and that we were doing everything right. We trusted the system to look after her, and when we were given reassurance, we took it and carried on. How I wish we hadn't.

That's all in the past, though. What matters is that it doesn't happen again.

Link to article: BBC NEWS | Health | Care not top priority - NHS staff

Link to article: 'More consultants needed to improve NHS care' - Telegraph

BBC NEWS | Health | 'No plans' for migrant birth rate

The government should have done more to help the NHS cope with the increase in foreign-born mothers using maternity services, the Conservatives say.

How can the government keep saying that they are working towards having a named midwife for every mother, when the number of midwives is so low? 36 midwives per 1,000 births are required, yet the average is only 31 and it is as low as 26 per 1,000 in some NHS Trusts.

If the birthrate continues to rise (whether caused by immigration or not) then maternity services are going to be even more stretched unless this vital area of care is properly resourced. There is no way that any midwife can provide the recommended level of care if she is spread amongst too many mothers. That is the case in hospital and within the community.

CEMACH recommends* that 'routine observations of pulse, BP, temperature, respiratory rate, and lochia should be made in all recently delivered women for several days postpartum' and yet most women are turfed out of hospital within a few hours, and often receive only one or two visits from a midwife in the community. How is anyone going to spot the signs of serious illness?

* Saving Mothers' Lives 2003-2005, p102

As you may know, Lord Darzi (leading surgeon and Department of Health minister) is two thirds of the way through his review of the NHS. He is examining eight clinical pathways, Maternity being one of them.

There is a consultation across the UK about Primary Care (GP) services today, but there is also an online questionnaire for the public which runs for another month. (There is a separate survey for NHS staff.)

Short on opportunity to comment directly on maternity services, the questionnaire is nevertheless an opportunity to have a say in the NHS - that's what it's all about: 'Our NHS, our future'.

It's a fair bit longer than our own survey, but it only took me about five minutes to complete, so if you can spare the time...

The Daily Telegraph has a story today, 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, they might one day be fulfilled.

I believe that one answer to Childbed Fever (amongst other issues) is to have midwives with enough knowledge, experience and time to be able to spot the symptoms before they can become life threatening. If there aren't enough midwives, that certainly isn't going to happen.

BBC South Today has tonight reported further in the aftermath of the two tragic deaths at The Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester.

The hospital has, to reassure its patients, implemented a screening programme for Group A Streptococcus, but it doesn't plan to continue with it beyond the short term.

So, is it just a PR exercise, or is this test an accurate and useful weapon against childbed fever (still nobody calls it that, it is still 'complications caused by...') There may 'only' be an average of six maternal sepsis deaths a year, but even one avoidable death is enough to warrant prevention, isn't it?

If the test is not accurate then why are they doing it? If it is not 'cost effective' to continue it or take it nationwide, does 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 sitting on.

If only infection rates were measured and not just deaths - this is a far more common problem than we are led to believe.

Watch the BBC's report 

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 says that deaths due to substandard care have not risen, are we supposed to applaud the NHS?

Jessica died because of substandard care, from a disease that has been known about for hundreds of years, and is easily treated.

The number of deaths from genital tract sepsis (ie childbed fever, pueperal fever) has gone up by 38%. Is it just me that thinks this is a scandal, and totally unacceptable?

The sense that I am getting is that the NHS and the government are not bothered by the increasing death rate, are not bothered about a properly funded and properly run maternity service because the statistics meet some unknown target. Instead they are blaming us for their failure to be aware, to treat and to run a modern health service.

There is a twist though. Jessica was a petite, middle class, 34 year old woman. Her post mortem report, however, gives her height as 1.61m and her post delivery weight as 82kg. The NHS Direct website has just told me that this means that her Body Mass Index would be 31.6, which is classed as obese.

This is utterly ridiculous - she was anything but overweight, as anybody who knew her would testify to, and the clothes she wore pre pregnancy were size 8-10. I couldn't really believe that she would be classed as obese, so I referred to her medical notes:

In August 2002, when not pregnant, her GP recorded a height of 1.64m and a weight of 55kg. This gives a BMI of 20.45 which is an "ideal weight".

In April 2004, when seven months pregnant, she was 61.9kg (and presumably still the same height) which gives a BMI of 23.01 which is still an ideal weight even for someone who isn't pregnant.

Somewhere between April and June she apparently lost 3cm in height and gained 20kg, even after Emily was delivered, making her an obese statistic. How many other anomalies are there in "Saving Mothers' Lives" that enable them to blame mothers for their own maternal death, I wonder?

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 hard as I can, but its stirred up a lot of feelings. Jessica is one of the statistics that the report covers, and it has all come flooding back to me - the pain, the fear and the total bewilderment after her death.

I'm just not up to it at the moment, and it sounds like the news coverage is going to be good anyway, with or without me, but I'll bounce back to fight another day.

CEMACH's latest triennial report, now called 'Saving Mothers' Lives' is due to be launched on Tuesday. As I heard on Friday, the Independent on Sunday has seen an advance copy of its findings.

The bottom line is that, overall, maternal deaths are up 13% from 261 (2000-02) to 295, and deaths from genital tract sepsis are up by a staggering 38%, from 13 to 18. The full Independent on Sunday article, Mothers at risk: Britain's real labour crisis, is on their website to read.

There seems to be some confusion within the government about the true picture - the Health minister, Ann Keen, seems to think that this means we have a death rate of 7 per 100,000 pregnancies, but the real figure is 13.95 per 100,000. How much longer can they keep burying their heads in the sand?

We need to take control, as parents, and show the NHS and government that we are not prepared to slide further into this third world state, and that no more unnecessary maternal deaths are acceptable.

I encourage you to write to your MP and let your feelings be known.