The Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health (CEMACH) publishes triennial reports reviewing all cases of maternal death. The most recently published report, 'Why Mothers Die' is for the period 2000-2002, and I have often quoted (both in these pages and to the press) the statistics it found and also its recommendations, few of which seem to be taken up, as they are repeated report after report in alarmingly consistent language.

The next report, for 2003-2005, is now to be called "Saving Mothers' Lives", as I have just learned from CEMACH's updated website, and it will be published this December.

This sounds to me like spin. The report, by it's very nature, highlights the cases of mothers who have died, not the ones who have had trouble free experiences, or even 'near misses'. If they do plan to discuss cases where the NHS has saved an ill mother, I could let them know of many horrendous near miss stories that have filtered through to me, but I suspect that - whatever the name - it will be the same report on the same causes of the deaths of the mothers that weren't saved.

If this Department of Health sponsored report wants to pat its master on the back, it should do so elsewhere. Jessica's case will (confidentially of course) be included in the statistics, reviews and summaries, and I don't for a moment believe that she will be alone in its 'Genital tract sepsis' pages.

In fact, I highly suspect that there won't be much of an improvement on previous triennia, but I'd love to be wrong. The bottom line, though is that what we and the NHS need to know is Why Mothers Die and how to stop them dying.

Whatever the findings, please let them be acted on this time.

Reminder: the petition closes in mid-October, so there's still time to help it make a difference in advance of December's report.

NHS maternity care 'is in crisis' - Telegraph
Fears over the standard of NHS services for expectant mothers were heightened last night after it emerged that the number of maternity beds has fallen by up to 40 per cent in some regions.

Need I comment?

When I stand out in our garden, like just a moment ago, and I can hear Emily sitting in the bathroom, gently singing a word - and almost tune - perfect rendition of 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' my heart bleeds for her, and for Harry.

I ask myself, 'What can I do to make their lives better?' I know where my weaknesses as a parent are, and I know where my strengths are. I need to work on some things, but I think I'm doing an OK job, and they are, essentially, happy.

I can't, though, fix what is really broken, but I can try and stop the same breaking for other children, and I'm always trying to think of new ways of achieving it. However, I can't do it alone. I need help, so please; pass on an email to all your family and friends about my website and ask them to spare a minute to sign the petition, because the more people that know, the less likely a repeat of Jessica's death is, and because the more people who sign, the more likely that the government and the NHS will take notice of our need for our mothers.

If you're on Facebook, you can help spread the message by joining the group, Petition to end Childbed Fever. Then, please, invite all your friends to join and encourage them to sign the petition too. It'll only take a second, but it could delay one other Diamond in the Sky.

So far I've always said that Maternity care in this country is excellent for babies and sub standard for mothers. The reasons for this are obvious, but it goes wider than Jessica and our family. So many of Jessica's friends have said that they were not adequately looked after post-natally, both in hospital and at home afterwards although, luckily, no permanent damage was done.

I've just watched Channel 4's Dispatches programme, 'Undercover Mother', and I'm not so sure any more. It showed that babies are also suffering from inadequately resourced Maternity services.

A few months ago BBC1 showed a Panorama programme, 'Midwives Undercover', which ended with the covertly recorded line from a midwife that said that nobody would sit up until they lost a mother. Well wake up and sit up: healthy mothers like Jessica are dying as well as babies. Neither baby nor mother is expendable, neither's loss should be budgeted for nor tolerated.

Why is this government ignoring the danger that we all; rich/poor, black/white, educated/uneducated, northern/southern, married/unmarried face. Childbirth is a traumatic and dangerous event for mother and baby, and it must be provided for. To Gold Standard.

This country is not going to stop having babies, and nobody's going to limit procreation to fit a government budget. The NHS must look at the number of babies being born, look at the level of care required to ensure the safety and health of its patients and plan accordingly. Now. Not in nine months time.

So Tony hopped on the Sedgefield train and Patricia has resigned, according to the 10 o'clock news. Not exactly a surprise, given the mess she's made of the NHS.

Alan Johnson is the commentator's expected successor in Gordon Brown's cabinet. He hasn't got a hard act to follow, but I wonder whether he'll take mothers seriously - and answer my invitation as well.

There will be people who are thinking that a new day is dawning, but I suspect that the sunset is just changing its colour (or Tone).

So Gordon's going to be driving the train in a few days, and the popular buzz seems to be that he'll be re-shuffling his conductors in a major way.

I wonder what Patricia Hewitt's prospects are? Her First Aid carriage is in pretty bad array, so she may be waiting on the platform. Few will be waving out of the windows as the train steams out of the station, but who will take up her post?

Whoever it is will have their work cut out, but my original invitation to Patsy still stands, in the event she is replaced. As reported back in March, my invitation to the incumbent Health Secretary is:

"I would like the Health Secretary to explain to my two children why Jessica isn’t going to tuck them up in bed tonight."

I've waited three months already, and I'll wait for as long as it takes for somebody to take responsibility.

"What's an infection, Daddy?" Harry interrupted the bed time story. "How do you get an infection, Daddy?"

No prizes for guessing what was on his mind, but satisfied with my answers, he tucked himself back down again.

They're questions he has asked time and time again, and I always explain them as accurately as I can in six year old terms, but I can see he's struggling to understand why Mummy died because of her infection. Why, if doctors (real or make believe, like Emily with her new doctor's kit) are there to make people better with stethoscopes and medicine, did his mother not get better?

He is obviously not getting it to add up, but the only thing left for me to tell him is that the doctors (in his world this would include midwives as well) could have made Mummy better, but didn't recognise that she was ill until it was too late to save her.

I know that when the penny drops he will be angry. So, so angry. I won't be able to say he shouldn't be and it's going to be very painful for us all.

What will I say to them both if one of us gets even slightly ill? That the doctor will make us better? Will they believe me? Pretty unlikely, I would guess.

I wrote to my MP a while back, and she tabled a written question in Parliament, addressed to the Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt:

“To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the death rate per million maternities from puerperal sepsis and other forms of septicaemia was in each year since 1999-2000; and if she will make a statement.”

The answer came from Ivan Lewis MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Dept of Health.

“Deaths from puerperal sepsis are very rare. The Department-sponsored confidential enquiry into maternal deaths 'Why Mothers Die' report for 2000-02 only identified five women who died of puerperal sepsis in the United Kingdom for the three years 2000 to 2002. This gives a maternal death rate of 2.5 per million maternities. The next report is due to be published later this year and will contain the figures for the three year period 2003-05.”

Well: if you discount the eight further deaths from sepsis before term or after caesarian, yes it's five. Wait, he didn't say that, he said “only...five women who died.” Oh silly me, getting all worked up about dead mothers – it's OK really after all, it's only five.

If you look at the years since 1984 - the last time no deaths from sepsis were recorded - 30 women have died from this easily treatable illness. If you look at pre-term and post-caesarians as well, add another 59.

But it doesn't matter, does it Mr Lewis? It's only 89 families without a mother; don't trouble Patsy with it, because each family has only lost one mother, and any statistician will say that it doesn't get much better than that.

The full answer to the original question, according to 'Why Mothers Die?', for the period 2000-02 is 13 deaths making a rate of 6.5 per million maternities.