By Chris Hardy

Midwives at the Community Maternity Unit at Montrose Infirmary stepped back in time yesterday to mark 60 years of NHS healthcare.

Donning nursing clothes from a bygone age, the midwives reflected on how their role had changed and developed since the birth of the NHS back in 1948.

The maternity unit has been in Montrose Infirmary since 1980. Prior to this, maternity services were provided at the town’s Charleton Maternity Home which had an earlier link with health care in the area, being the home of Susan Carnegie, founder in 1781 of Sunnyside Royal Hospital, the first psychiatric hospital in the country.

Phyllis Winters, team leader at Montrose Community Maternity Unit said, “Over the years the gradual decline in births at the hospital has been reversed and in 2007, 215 women chose to give birth within the maternity unit, the highest number since the unit became midwife-led in 2001.

“Both women and midwives are united in the aim of making childbirth as rewarding an experience as possible.

“New mums often speak about the importance of taking control of their labours and how this enriches their experience giving them feelings of empowerment and confidence during birthing. Midwives feel very strongly that we listen to women and work in partnership with them to provide the service that women want.

“Gone are the days when a woman had a passive role in labour, often confined to bed for long periods of their labour.

“Women today want an active, equal role which includes detailed discussions with their midwives covering such things as pain relief, how their birth will be managed and where it will happen. Many women now choose to birth in our birthing pool.

“Maternity care has developed over the years reflecting the changing needs of women today. An example of this is the length of postnatal stay in hospital reducing from a lengthy 10 days to now anything from a few hours to a couple of days if everything is well with mum and baby. This allows mums to be back with their families as quickly as possible.”

When the time comes for you to have your baby, you want to be in a place where you feel comfortable, relaxed, confident and secure, and for everything to go as smoothly as possible.

Angus is privileged to have two community maternity units in Montrose and Arbroath as well as a home birth service for women expecting a straightforward labour.

The team in Montrose won the Royal College of Midwives Promotion of Normality award in 2005 and the British Journal of Midwifery Team of the Year in 2006 in recognition of their work in ‘setting the standard’ for community maternity units/free-standing birth centres.

The Arbroath unit is also seeing a year-on-year increase in its number of births and was a runner-up at the 2007 Scottish Health Awards.

Montrose is now looking forward to a move from its infirmary base to a new maternity unit due to be built adjacent to the town’s health centre.

Our picture shows Montrose midwives Fiona McInnes (right) and Liz Dalgetty with new mum Ashleigh Taylor and baby Aiden.