Thank you so much to everyone who has signed this petition. To give you an update on what has been done with it so far. Unlike gov.uk petitions, Change.orgs do not automatically get heard in parliament once they reach 100,000. 

Holly Avis who started this petition whilst pregnant, during lockdown, has campaigned throughout. The petition has been sent to the House of Commons, Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock, her local MP Peter Bone and has been ignored. It has also been sent to Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent OBE - England's first Chief Midwifery Officer and Professor of Midwifery at King's College London and London South Bank University who replied that there is nothing that she can do. 

Holly’s birth story (told in our update yesterday) has a happy outcome but only because she had the support of a doula (Thank you Julie Ann!) and her home birth team, empowering her to make a stand for her rights and the choices that she wanted to make. Many women have not had this support and it has to change.

In recent weeks, more and more people and organisations have written open letters to their NHS trusts and MPs. A few trusts HAVE started to let partners in throughout labour and to scans - but we can count those on one hand. The rest are lagging behind for seemingly logical - yes we know we are in a pandemic but as our open letter via the link below outlines, these reasons can be mitigated.

So now we are going to try a different approach and we hope that you can help. We are instigating a national social media campaign at 11am on Tuesday 2nd September. Instructions can be found here and we hope you can take the time to read through and make one post on that date at that time. We want to make enough social media noise to be picked up in the mainstream media and start holding the powers that be to account. 

https://www.birthblissdoulacourses.co.uk/campaign-butnotmaternity.html

Kindest regards and thanks in advance!